Domestic US wires are (with the exception of flagged or manual telephone Fedwire placements) automatic through the Fedwire system, which is a RTGS (real time gr

Domestic US wires are (with the exception of flagged or manual telephone Fedwire placements) automatic through the Fedwire system, which is a RTGS (real time gross settlement) system. Most Euro denominated payments (not sure I'd call them wires anymore) are also automatic, cheap and easy thanks to SEPA's wide proliferation. Most of the time the extra info not actually required for automatic processing is in case the payment doesn't go through as intended, as well as for compliance reasons. As Elric notes above, international payments (outside a common currency zone with a system like Fedwire/SEPA) is where things get tricky/manual processing often comes into play.