5 ms·

Eh, in the UK I already have instantaneous bank transfers that are free for normal retail customers to use. Money arrives instantly, and as far as a retail cus

Eh, in the UK I already have instantaneous bank transfers that are free for normal retail customers to use. Money arrives instantly, and as far as a retail customer is concerned, it settles instantly. Under the hood their regular batch settlement between banks, but that doesn’t matter to a retail customer, because the money is instantly withdraw-able, and covered by government deposit protection the moment the faster payment appears on your bank statement (which is milliseconds after the payment is initiated by the sender). Why would I want to mess around with Bitcoins, when I already have access to fast, secure, cheap, money transfers to any UK bank account?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
lifty 4y ago
What if you want to buy something from outside UK?
- Kwpolska 4y ago
  Then I'll pay with my credit card, since it's the safest, easiest, and pretty much instantaneous as far as I'm concerned.
  - junofan 4y ago
    You buy stocks with your credit card?
ipaddr 4y ago
Sometimes you need to pay someone outside of the UK. Maybe you want to purchase something online. Perhaps you don't want to share your bank account with a stranger.
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  People did all this long before Bitcoin.
  - tossl568 4y ago
    Digitally, without fees, with a fair exchange rate? With no limits on transaction sizes, with complete finality?
    - ryan_lane 4y ago
      > Digitally With the exception of stores that are cash only, 100% of my money movements in the past 10 years have been digital, from my perspective. The actual money movement technology doesn't really matter to me, as long as I can do it online. Excluding settlement times (which I don't notice, unless I'm doing a wire transfer), as a consumer there's no difference. > without fees With bitcoin, you're paying fees per-transaction for bitcoin itself, and both parties are paying fees to move money to/from fiat. Wire transfers for large transfers may be slower, but they're absolutely cheaper than bitcoin. Bitcoin is considerably more expensive for small payments. > with a fair exchange rate With the fluctuations in price in bitcoin, the exchange rate is rarely fair and almost always worse than fiat. Note that there's lots of cards that don't charge foreign transaction fees, and have quite competitive exchange rates. To point it out again, using bitcoin requires two fiat exchanges, each of which charge fees and each of which has an exchange rate that the exchange is profiting from. If you're transferring fiat of the same currency, there's no fees and no exchange rate. Even if your transaction is between two fiat currencies, bitcoin is worse, because there's one extra layer of fees and exchange. > With no limits on transaction sizes I can't think of a time in which I've hit a transaction size limit. Who is this feature for? Transaction size limits exist primarily to protect people. If my card is compromised, it won't result in 100% of my money immediately (and irreversibly) being transferred away. > with complete finality This is an anti-selling point. If my money is stolen, I want to be able to get it back. If I typo an account number when I send a payment, I want to be able to reverse that payment.
    - merry_flame 4y ago
      Have you tried Wise? I've been using the service (based in the UK, created by Skype's founders). The exchange rate is always shared upfront, extremely cheap with various options provided, many free or dirt cheap, some faster but slightly more expensive. Not too sure about the rest because my use case is very specific. Excellent for international business payments and remittances, I can assure you about that.
- sangnoir 4y ago
  > Perhaps you don't want to share your bank account with a stranger. Or else what? They'll deposit some money into your account? The biggest reason bank accounts are semi-secret in the US is free-for-all ACH pulls; a minimal threat in other countries due to the fundamental differences on who is liable for unauthorized withdrawals (not the depositor!)
- avianlyric 4y ago
  SEPA gets me most of Europe, and open banking lets me use bank transfer rails for online purchases. What’s wrong with share bank details? You can’t do anything with them, except send me money. Most countries have similarly capable local payment systems. The US is the only developed nation I’m aware of that’s missing such basic financial infrastructure.
SkinTaco 4y ago
Sheesh, what a eurocentric post.
- avianlyric 4y ago
  I think you meant “non-US centric post”. Most of the world has equivalent financial infrastructure. The US is notable for complete lack of cheap basic money transfer mechanisms.
tossl568 4y ago
You are not the protagnist of reality. And one day even you might want to send money easily to somewhere other than a UK account, without jumping through any hoops of middlemen.
spaceman_2020 4y ago
Have you considered that people want to transfer money outside the country too? And that this volume is incredibly massive? And is critical to global trade? And that it has been used as a weapon to keep non-compliant countries out of international trade?
- soco 4y ago
  Do you actually know people using it to transfer money outside, or it's all in the realm of imaginary possibilities? All people I know used hawala or sometimes the expensive WU/Moneygram, but that's just me.
  - spaceman_2020 4y ago
    Personally, I used it to accept a mid five figure payment for a website in lieu of a wire transfer. but the point remains that just because the legacy system exists doesn’t mean no alternative should ever exist.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

lifty 4y ago

What if you want to buy something from outside UK?

Kwpolska 4y ago
Then I'll pay with my credit card, since it's the safest, easiest, and pretty much instantaneous as far as I'm concerned.
- junofan 4y ago
  You buy stocks with your credit card?

ipaddr 4y ago

Sometimes you need to pay someone outside of the UK. Maybe you want to purchase something online. Perhaps you don't want to share your bank account with a stranger.

ceejayoz 4y ago
People did all this long before Bitcoin.
- tossl568 4y ago
  Digitally, without fees, with a fair exchange rate? With no limits on transaction sizes, with complete finality?
  - ryan_lane 4y ago
    > Digitally With the exception of stores that are cash only, 100% of my money movements in the past 10 years have been digital, from my perspective. The actual money movement technology doesn't really matter to me, as long as I can do it online. Excluding settlement times (which I don't notice, unless I'm doing a wire transfer), as a consumer there's no difference. > without fees With bitcoin, you're paying fees per-transaction for bitcoin itself, and both parties are paying fees to move money to/from fiat. Wire transfers for large transfers may be slower, but they're absolutely cheaper than bitcoin. Bitcoin is considerably more expensive for small payments. > with a fair exchange rate With the fluctuations in price in bitcoin, the exchange rate is rarely fair and almost always worse than fiat. Note that there's lots of cards that don't charge foreign transaction fees, and have quite competitive exchange rates. To point it out again, using bitcoin requires two fiat exchanges, each of which charge fees and each of which has an exchange rate that the exchange is profiting from. If you're transferring fiat of the same currency, there's no fees and no exchange rate. Even if your transaction is between two fiat currencies, bitcoin is worse, because there's one extra layer of fees and exchange. > With no limits on transaction sizes I can't think of a time in which I've hit a transaction size limit. Who is this feature for? Transaction size limits exist primarily to protect people. If my card is compromised, it won't result in 100% of my money immediately (and irreversibly) being transferred away. > with complete finality This is an anti-selling point. If my money is stolen, I want to be able to get it back. If I typo an account number when I send a payment, I want to be able to reverse that payment.
  - merry_flame 4y ago
    Have you tried Wise? I've been using the service (based in the UK, created by Skype's founders). The exchange rate is always shared upfront, extremely cheap with various options provided, many free or dirt cheap, some faster but slightly more expensive. Not too sure about the rest because my use case is very specific. Excellent for international business payments and remittances, I can assure you about that.
sangnoir 4y ago
> Perhaps you don't want to share your bank account with a stranger. Or else what? They'll deposit some money into your account? The biggest reason bank accounts are semi-secret in the US is free-for-all ACH pulls; a minimal threat in other countries due to the fundamental differences on who is liable for unauthorized withdrawals (not the depositor!)
avianlyric 4y ago
SEPA gets me most of Europe, and open banking lets me use bank transfer rails for online purchases. What’s wrong with share bank details? You can’t do anything with them, except send me money. Most countries have similarly capable local payment systems. The US is the only developed nation I’m aware of that’s missing such basic financial infrastructure.

SkinTaco 4y ago

Sheesh, what a eurocentric post.

avianlyric 4y ago
I think you meant “non-US centric post”. Most of the world has equivalent financial infrastructure. The US is notable for complete lack of cheap basic money transfer mechanisms.

tossl568 4y ago

You are not the protagnist of reality. And one day even you might want to send money easily to somewhere other than a UK account, without jumping through any hoops of middlemen.

spaceman_2020 4y ago

Have you considered that people want to transfer money outside the country too? And that this volume is incredibly massive? And is critical to global trade? And that it has been used as a weapon to keep non-compliant countries out of international trade?

soco 4y ago
Do you actually know people using it to transfer money outside, or it's all in the realm of imaginary possibilities? All people I know used hawala or sometimes the expensive WU/Moneygram, but that's just me.
- spaceman_2020 4y ago
  Personally, I used it to accept a mid five figure payment for a website in lieu of a wire transfer. but the point remains that just because the legacy system exists doesn’t mean no alternative should ever exist.