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Since leaving the US, the idea that these services exist now boggles my mind. Here (Iceland) it's free to transfer money between individuals via your bank. Yo

• koolba 5y ago
  If they simply provided a separate “input” and “output” account number, it’d solve 99% of the problems with the US banking system. As it is now, anybody can submit an ACH for whatever account they’d like and the onus is on the target to monitor their transactions. All it takes is a routing and account number. It’s seriously insane.
  • paranoidrobot 5y ago
    I believe that's also a US-specific problem. In Australia, a regular person with knowledge of my bank code (BSB) and my account ID isn't able to withdraw money from my account, but they can send me money. It's very low risk. For the last few years I've been able to associate a phone number or email address to my bank using PayID[1] which eliminates even that. The BSB + Account ID can be used to set up direct debits, it's intended for ongoing/regular payments like utilities/rent/etc. Because it requires a fair bit of paperwork/infrastructure to get registered in that system, I don't think anyone would be able to get away with scamming using it for long. [1] https://payid.com.au/ https://payid.com.au/
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  • rhuru 5y ago
    That is not entirely true. A random entity can not withdraw only certain authenticated entities can. The cost of stealing is very very high.
• jdavis703 5y ago
  The same is true in the US. ACH and wire transfers can be free (unless you're with a bank that offers "free checking" but comes laden with hidden charges). And we also have Zelle, which offers much faster transfers (it works within minutes) for free.
  • millzlane 5y ago
    I wish Zelle worked with my CU. Or my CU worked with Zelle rather.
    • pxx 5y ago
      Zelle falls back to using the visa debit network. You don't need affirmative support from your credit union.
      • commoner 5y ago
        Zelle has a low sending limit if your bank or credit union is not partnered with them: > If your bank or credit union does not yet offer Zelle®, your weekly send limit is $500. Please note that you cannot request to increase or decrease your send limit. https://www.zellepay.com/faq/there-limit-how-much-money-i-can-send https://www.zellepay.com/faq/there-limit-how-much-money-i-ca... In addition, if your financial institution is not partnered with Zelle, you can't send money to anyone whose financial institution is also not partnered with Zelle: > If your bank or credit union does NOT offer Zelle®- The person you want to send money to, or receive money from, must have access to Zelle® through their bank or credit union. https://www.zellepay.com/faq/who-can-i-send-money-zelle https://www.zellepay.com/faq/who-can-i-send-money-zelle
      • brewtide 5y ago
        I once had someone send me a decent sum of money using Zelle, but I had no Zelle account. I tried to set one up, CU not supported. Went the Debit route -- Also, in my case, not supported. After a few phone calls with their customer service department, it was evident that it was not going to work out. ALSO, they had no way to 'refund' that person the sizable amount of money beyond waiting the 2 weeks or so it takes for that money to be 'unclaimed', and thus reverting to the originating account. So, for 2 weeks, thousands of dollars were 'stuck' in no mans land. It all resolved out, when the timeframes were hit, and transactions reversed, but it still boggles my mind that they do not have a method beyond this when such cases arise.
• yurishimo 5y ago
  I think most banks have solutions for this (ACH generally) but the UI sucks which is obviously a problem as well as the latency. Latency is getting better and I think 2022 is the year a big change to the ACH system is getting rolled out that should decrease that wait time to less than 24 hours for most transactions. But you'll still have all of these companies vying for the in-between so they can make money investing transitional funds. Now you see services like Cash.app moving to a more bank-like structure with a debit card and Apple Pay, so they can keep that money in their system and they can continue to do stuff with it. I agree with your broad point though. This should be easier in the US.
  • BHSPitMonkey 5y ago
    Most banks support Zelle (formerly ClearXChange), which uses ACH on the back-end but delivers funds essentially right away. The problem is that (1) most consumers don't know this is a thing, and (2) as you said, the UX of sending money through Venmo is generally far better than having to log in to your institution's mobile banking app, get past MFA, and then find the option to send money to someone. Zelle also lacks the concept of requesting money (I think), and that feature is a big QOL advantage in my experience.
    • fragmede 5y ago
      Zelle is a fucking joke. I spent 2.5 hours between three departments because Chase locked my account because I tried to use Zelle to send money. They locked my account until I reached the right department, which had this very important concept for me, which I will now share with you: If you give someone money, the money is no longer yours. After sharing this mind-blowing concept, they unlocked my account. Bank of America was slightly less aggressive, and merely flagged the transaction as fraudulent (which required another phone call to complete - and they had the same concept to share with me). By owning both ends of the transaction, the UX of Venmo is so much better it isn't even funny. I will never use Zelle again if I can help it. Zelle's limitations (set by each bank) are as bad as Venmo's (eg can only send $2,000/month to a recipient), at which point I might as well just keep using Venmo.
• speedyapoc 5y ago
  Canada here. These US services seem amazing. We're limited to "Interac e-Transfers" with archaic send times, terribly low maximums, and even per-transaction fees.
  • digianarchist 5y ago
    To be fair most banks waive the fee. I agree with the minimums and send time. It’s ridiculous that a transfer I make every week to my wife takes 30 mins to complete. Slower than Bitcoin.
  • rnotaro 5y ago
    I don't have the same experience. All my canadian banks are covering my fees and 80% of the time the transfer is instantaneous. Most of the time under 5 minutes. Interac E-Transfer minimums are 0.01$. Money is going straight into my checking accounts.
    • digianarchist 5y ago
      Tangerine in particular appear to be the problem with slow transfers.
  • rchaud 5y ago
    I pay a cleaning service regularly w/ E-transfer and the money is deposited within minutes. My bank imposes a $3,000 daily limit, which is more than US services seem to allow in a month.
    • klyrs 5y ago
      My bank has a daily limit, but I've always found it easy to just call and ask them to raise the limit for the day. A minor inconvenience, but I'd not like to accidentally spend more.
• asdff 5y ago
  How can you demand better of your banking institiution when the banking institution can outspend your grassroots efforts in advertising ahead of the election to put in a yes man, and said yes man recieves an order of magnitude more in donations from the banking institution than what your grassroots effort could ever raise from individual voters, along with a favorable consulting position once they are out of office with said banking institution? The whole system is designed by corrupt people to make it very easy to be corrupted, and very hard to ever systematically eliminate corruption. Hard to simply demand better when you are so beholden to this broken system.
  • lotsofpulp 5y ago
    It is not the fault of the private banks. The US government wants to hold banks liable for their customers transferring money, which is the reason all the abstractions exist. The US government has always had the opportunity to come out with a digital equivalent to cash, that they policed rather than selectively hold private entities liable. Supposedly, this is coming out soon called FedNow. https://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/fednow_about.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/fednow_about.h... Electronic money transfer should be a government utility, subject to courts rather than private business’ whims. Although, the US government does like sitting on the sideline and maintaining plausible deniability.
  • _bfhp 5y ago
    if US leftists didn't hate unifying around class consciousness and everyone else didn't hate protesting so much they would probably call for the Boston Tea Party rioters to be hung if they were alive then, we might be able to have a more intuitive sense of what "demand better" means when our friends across the ponds suggest it
• PragmaticPulp 5y ago
  This is specifically for “goods and services” transactions, which can come with additional protections through PayPal if the seller never delivers or otherwise tried to defraud you. You can also just send the money to their bank account if you really wanted to, but nobody actually likes doing that when you can use the protections (however imperfect) these services provide.
• TrackerFF 5y ago
  Here in Norway a service called "Vipps" is pretty much the standard now. No fees for transfers under 5000 NOK or something like that...around $600. It's pretty much instant. I think most countries have solved this problem by now - i.e instant transfer through apps. Seems like every country has their own service. Would be nice to get some larger unified version - that'd be cool.
  • sofixa 5y ago
    > Would be nice to get some larger unified version - that'd be cool. There's SEPA and SEPA Instant for the eurozone, and they are awesome ( free, fast, reliable, only an IBAN required).
• Scoundreller 5y ago
  > Here (Iceland) it's free to transfer money between individuals via your bank. Yes, but what’s the average Icelander’s monthly bank account fee? In the US, it’s a bit fat zero.
  • kjaftaedi 5y ago
    We don't have bank account fees. Another fun fact: pretty much everyone here pays off their credit card every month. The bank will close your account if you do not. Of course there are exceptions, but this is the general rule. (if you need money the bank will lend it to you and help you arrange payments)
    • emptysongglass 5y ago
      I don't know if Iceland follows in lockstep with the rest of EU monetary policy but here in Denmark, they take your money another way: negative inflation applied to comically low limits (100,000 DKK) equivalent to $15,000 USD.
  • CogitoCogito 5y ago
    > In the US, it’s a bit fat zero. It seems you get what you pay for.
    • smsm42 5y ago
      Given alternatives for sending money do exist (and free), I'm fine with paying zero for a bank account.
      • CogitoCogito 5y ago
        My Swedish bank account does indeed incur monthly fees whereas my American bank account does not. That said, when comparing the quality of Sweden's system for digitaly sending money to the one in the US, I would gladly pay something similar if the US adopted a system like Sweden's. So I guess I'll just repeat what I said in my last post: It seems you get what you pay for.
• progforlyfe 5y ago
  I've actually had decent luck using Zelle in the past 2 years for local transactions for second hand marketplace transactions (used furniture and stuff). It's not fully bank native, but quite close it seems.
• moneywoes 5y ago
  In Canada we have E-transfer which providers similar functionality
• smsm42 5y ago
  Transfers between banks are free in the US too (if you mean ACH transfers, Wires cost $30, but the only time I used a wire is paying the downpayment for my house). But setting up ACH link is both relatively complex and dangerous, since once it's set up, it can be used to move money in both directions indefinitely. Thus, not very useful for between-persons payments. Banks have other systems for such payments, but there are so many different ones that the chance random person has a bank with the system you know how to operate that is also supported by your bank is pretty low. Thus, Venmo. Paypal is easier to explain - they were born at the time banks and payment processors weren't really sure this whole internet thing is not a passing fad, so they didn't do anything. And now they have a huge incumbent advantage.
  • salamandersauce 5y ago
    Yes, but that's the point. For instance here in Canada we have Interac eTransfer which is supported by every bank. You go on your bank's app or website and you enter the email of the person you want to send money to and how much and a little password type thing and that's it. I don't need to know my friends bank info just their email. On the receiver side you just get an email and then you can pick what bank you want to deposit it in and log in as normal. And every bank has it for free these days (some used to have a $1 fee).
• Kiro 5y ago
  I don't know. In Sweden we can do the same but everyone still uses Swish where your phone number is your identifier. No-one remembers their bank account number.