7 ms·

Guys what is wrong with ACATS

128 points by martinky24 2y ago

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
e63f67dd-065b 2y ago
I never knew about the 3-day limit before, it makes sense that this is the reason behind unverified ACATS transfers (a problem that I've spent no small amount of time arguing about on various online forums long ago). Interestingly, Fidelity lets you put your account into "lockdown" mode there they'll reject all ACATS (and ACH too I believe) transfers automatically without your intervention. I've always wondered what kind of legal magic they're pulling to make this compliant with FINRA rules. What eventually convinced me over that it's not a problem is, as Patrick says, that these institutions will with high likelihood make you whole for fraudulent transfers, the same way they will for fraudulent ACH. The financial system generally works.
- vineyardmike 2y ago
  > these institutions will with high likelihood make you whole for fraudulent transfers, the same way they will for fraudulent ACH. The financial system generally works. This applies to so much of the financial system, that it baffles me people worry about the things they do. I have family members that are so scared of card skimming they only pay in cash, and friends who are still too scared of the internet to buy things online.
  - cesarb 2y ago
    > This applies to so much of the financial system, that it baffles me people worry about the things they do. That's easy to understand. For the "financial system", $1000 is nothing. For many people, $1000 means the difference between having something to eat or not. Even if you get your money back in the end, not having any money for several days can be a disaster; and the 1% chance that you might not get that back can be too much risk to bear. > I have family members that are so scared of card skimming they only pay in cash That's understandable. With cash, all you can lose is the cash you have in hand at that moment; if your card is skimmed and used without your permission, you can lose up to the card's limit (and perhaps even more, if the limit isn't strictly enforced). You might say that fraudulent transactions will be reversed, but there's always that 1% chance that the other side will somehow manage to convince your bank that the transactions were in fact legitimate. > and friends who are still too scared of the internet to buy things online. When you buy at a store, the goods you bought are in your physical possession at the moment of the payment. When you buy things online, the goods you bought show up days or even weeks later, if they do, and until they arrive, you have no idea whether they're actually what you bought (and that's on top of the "card skimming" risk). Sure, if you have enough resources, you can tolerate losing $1000 of the limit of one of your credit cards for a few days until the charge is reversed (and even, in the worst case, absorb the loss in case that charge isn't reversed), but not everyone can do that. And the perceived risk can be higher than the unknowable real risk; someone who has heard about (or experienced) enough incidents in which money was lost (temporarily or not) will understandably be more reluctant to expose themselves to these risks.
  - _lvbh 2y ago
    I once had to starve for 2 days because my bank froze my card over the weekend and being in a new country, had no cash with me (the nearest exchange was too far away by foot) Nowadays I pretty much have the bare minimum in the bank and just spend cash.
    - skybrian 2y ago
      Having multiple, independent payment methods, of any sort, seems like the way to go.
  - miki123211 2y ago
    For a lot of people, not having access to anything they currently have in their bank account, which is most of their savings, is actually a quite big deal, even if they can get that money back eventually.
  - chiph 2y ago
    I regard this as dealing with differing amounts of annoyance. Fraudulent credit card charge? Pffft - it will get taken care of with maybe two phone calls. Fraudulent debit card charge that leaves me with $8.31 in the bank? Getting up there on the annoyance scale. I have cash to live on for a few days, but it will likely require several phone calls and some outstanding bill-pays may bounce[0]. Someone buying a car with my stolen identity? Hugely annoying. [0] I have a couple of monthly bills that cause a physical check to be printed and mailed. And one of the recipients only checks their mail twice a week so the float time is significant. I deal with them because I must.
preinheimer 2y ago
So many parts of the financial system only work because there’s take-backsies. Taking back a wire transfer seems to basically involve someone at your bank phoning a friend, and it all works in the end.
- psychlops 2y ago
  The more one learns about how traditional finance works, the more horrifying it becomes.
  - supertrope 2y ago
    On a technical basis yes. Finance rests upon a foundation of people emailing around spreadsheets and trust. Much better than new innovative cryptocurrencies that are just a trojan, wallet address typo, or exit scam away from losing your savings.
    - psychlops 2y ago
      As trusting as the traditional finance system is, it seems they still experience exit scams, wire typos, and countless other scams that lose savings. Crypto has a long way to go, but tradfi hasn't solved its own problems. Until then, I guess we'd all better hope our bank representatives have a lot of friends in the industry.
      - astrange 2y ago
        Crypto can't solve its main problem though; it's fundamentally based around not being able to reverse transactions, which means you can't reverse a mistaken or fraudulent transaction, which is the whole reason tradfi works. And I don't think the other stuff makes up for this, even if programmability and flash loans are interesting. (I mean interesting mostly in a bad way.)
        miki123211 2y ago
        There's nothing in crypto that inherently prevents transaction reversals. This can be implemented as a smart contract on any sufficiently advanced blockchain (definitely Ethereum, not sure about Bitcoin). The way this works is that you put the money in an escrow contract first, designating a trusted third party as an arbiter. If you don't dispute the transaction for a few weeks, the money goes through irreversibly. If you do, the contract "locks up", and the third party can now either decide to send the money on to its destination or return it back to you. The contract is designed in such a way that those are the only things that third party can do with your money, they have no way of taking it for themselves. Either way, they get a small cut for the trouble of adjudicating the transaction. If what you're worried about is wallet hacks, not disingenuous merchants, that's doable too. Instead of storing your money directly in your wallet, you'd have to store it in a smart contract, designed in such a way that your key is the only one that can move money out of it. However, limitations would be placed on the contract with regards to how much money can be moved daily. Such limits would likely be different for transfers to trusted escrow contracts and for irreversible transactions. If you needed to move more money, you could designate a trusted third party (let's say a traditional bank doing traditional bank things for identity verification) as being able to override these limits for you. Again, that would be their only responsibility, they would not have the right to move any of your money without your permission. This essentially relegates a bank to the role of an identity verifier who cannot take control of your money in any possible way except by colluding with a hacker who already has access to your wallet. THe reason none of this exists is ecosystems and network effects, not technical limitations.
CaliforniaKarl 2y ago
Heads-Up for folks trying to get to one of the linked pages: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/mergers-and-acquisitions/matt-levines-money-stuff-the-sec-comes-for-crypto-custody https://news.bloomberglaw.com/mergers-and-acquisitions/matt-... You can get to the same content here: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-02-16/the-sec-comes-for-crypto-custody https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-02-16/the-se... Which was previously posted to HN here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34824986 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34824986
recursive 2y ago
Is it just me, or is that cat song not that good? I listened to it twice, and found it completely unremarkable. A minute later, I can't remember much about it.
- patio11 2y ago
  De gustibus non est disputandum; there are some things that ruin many people's lives that have no appeal to me, there are some things many people enjoy responsibly that I have learned to stop myself from using because I will not make good decisions over a period of years, and then there was that freaking cat song, which gave me the strongest "WARNING: Your brain is not in control of your response to this song, in a way which is qualitatively different than the usual ways music is moving." when listening to it that I found it remarkable.
  - NobodyNada 2y ago
    > I think if you say the words “my cat” to me when I am on my deathbed I will immediately hum three notes. The song is currently ruining my life in a very different sense: I keep listening to the song over and over to try to guess which three notes you're talking about, but I can't for the life of me figure it out. Mind clearing that up for me? (Personally, I definitely see how the song could be perceived as infectiously catchy, but it doesn't seem to do it for me. I think the structure and rhythm are a little too irregular for it to get stuck in my head.)
    - NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
      Back in the mid-1990s, I remember a news fluff piece about a woman who claimed to have epileptic seizures in response to hearing Mary Hart's voice (some newstainment journalist/anchor, maybe Entertainment Tonight?). Doctor supposedly confirmed it via experiment (though, now I wonder if the man should've kept his license, seems unsafe). Earworms are probably the same. Specific either to unique brains, or to particular brain neuro-templates.
      - 2y ago
icedchai 2y ago
I had to get a medallion stamp to do an ACATS transfer from broker A to B. I chose to get it at bank C, where I had my checking account, which also happened to own broker D. Of course, the medallions were handled by a sales guy (sorry, financial advisor) working for broker D who then spent an hour trying to convince me I should move my account to them instead. Eventually he finally gave in and sent off the paperwork. It's annoying the hoops you have to go through to get control of your own money.
- CaliforniaKarl 2y ago
  Reminds me of when I wanted to close my Bank of America account: I didn't know that you needed to make an appointment for that. But indeed, it's my money, I had all the ID-verification paperwork needed, and I was stubborn enough to agree to wait for a clerk to become available. For what it's worth, you may wish to consider a credit union, as it's less likely that a credit union would also own a brokerage.
CaliforniaKarl 2y ago
Fun fact about the Medallion Signature Guarantee: It's not a seal or embossment, like it often is for a notarization. Instead, it's a stamp (like what you see on [0]). It's a big stamp, but it's just a stamp. That's OK, though, because the person making the stamp is keeping a lot of records, so they'll know what they stamped. When I first got my Treasury Direct[1] account, I couldn't verify my identity using their online process, and so I had to mail in FS Form 5444[1]. My local credit union had "Medallion Service" as one of the reasons for booking an appointment (separate from "Notary"), and they were able to take care of it. As mentioned in the article, the person at the credit union asked me for a monetary value. As it was a new Treasury Direct account, I said "$10,000" (the maximum amount of Series I bonds you can get per calendar year). And as implied in the article, my credit union had no problems issuing this, even though they were not involved in Treasury Direct in any way. It's interesting, all the 'little' 'home-grown' ways of identity guarantee that pop up when needed. [0]: https://www.bankofamerica.com/signature-services/medallion-signature-guarantee/ https://www.bankofamerica.com/signature-services/medallion-s... [1]: https://www.treasurydirect.gov/forms/acctauth.pdf https://www.treasurydirect.gov/forms/acctauth.pdf
- bostik 2y ago
  I'm not in the US, but can fully appreciate the practice. If I were to request to move funds in 6-to-7 figures range across institutions, I absolutely would want the receiving outfit require that I visit my current outfit in person first to authorise such a transfer. Making sure that such visits are smooth and efficient is good service. On a related note, when I got my mortgage in the UK, the issuing bank/lender-arm required me and my wife each to get a Proof Of Being Alive. (I'm not a UK native.) Turns out embassies issue these quite routinely, for a modest fee, and a visit that lasts at most 15 minutes. At the time I found that requirement both confusing and irritating, but in the context of the article, it makes sense. The lender was about to issue a sufficiently large loan to a person with very limited[ß] UK transaction history. On the upside, more recently that same bank/lender prodded and arranged me to get an early, admittedly pretty good fixed deal on my remortgage - two months before the central banks started to hike their rates. Without that early intervention my current rate would be at least three percentage points higher. ß: from the viewpoint of a financial institution, who likely measures customer relationship ages in decades.
daft_pink 2y ago
The other side of this is that I’ve absolutely had a SEC advisor tell me that I couldn’t access my money unless I kept my account with him and the bank had to verify my access to the money if I wanted to transfer it, but if I stayed I could keep it. ACATS ultimately protects the consumer from keeping their money with unscrupulous advisors. I agree with the author that it is totally terrifying, but I feel the assets should be kept with a third party or third party verification service so that the broker isn’t incentivices to “verity” details. I think medallions are a good solution to this problem and like the author of the piece says they are shockingly easy to get. I think that the advisors themselves receiving the money generally have huge relationships with the companies they work with that issue medallions and even the third party companies with relationships with the receiving advisor will generally provide one for free even if the person doesn’t have one.
niederman 2y ago
> Infohazard warning about which I am being absolutely serious Small nit: since this song isn't a fact or idea per se, it would probably be more accurate to call this a cognitohazard.
TwoNineFive 2y ago
People who start sentences with "guys" or "bro".
throwaway290 2y ago
That suno song is not only not an earworm, I can't recall what it even sounds like after 15 minutes...
- jessekv 2y ago
  Try the top-played suno track, I promise that you will remember all the lyrics for more than 15 minutes. https://suno.com/song/ee467d00-5813-4a74-9792-c9ae4a09d344 https://suno.com/song/ee467d00-5813-4a74-9792-c9ae4a09d344
BiteCode_dev 2y ago
Damn I wish I thought about that title.
piinbinary 2y ago
It's somewhat amusing to look back on my Computer Science education, where they taught us that database transactions are used to ensure bank balances are moved atomically between accounts
- elteto 2y ago
  I’m sure this is true at some level. Just not _all_ levels. At some point you just can’t connect to the db on the other side because it belongs to a different institution.
mattofak 2y ago
I've had to get a medallion before to move a small retirement account and there were two things I very much did not like about the process: (1) Most institutions require you to have been a member for 6 months before they will grant a medallion. I was transferring money between Fidelity and Schwab. Neither of which have branch offices within an hour of where I live. And I only have a virtual bank. There was no one willing to give me a medallion because I have no local banking relationships. I had to pull a favour with work to get our controller to vouch for me at our business bank. (2) I've done domestic and international wires for much more money without needing anything like a medallion. Why can't I do something like log in to Fidelity and wire the funds across directly? (Also, have fun finding the forms required to transfer your retirement account. Fidelity at least made the process exceptionally difficult, and their customer service agents acted like they didn't know what a Simple IRA was or why one would want to transfer out. Sure there's a page about transferring, but it likes to loop you into the "transfer funds into" flow.)
captainkrtek 2y ago
Definitely unrelated, but am I the only one bugged when an article has a clearly AI generated graphic (eg: misspelled or garbled text)?
rayanjake 2y ago
[dead]

128 points by martinky24 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

I never knew about the 3-day limit before, it makes sense that this is the reason behind unverified ACATS transfers (a problem that I've spent no small amount of time arguing about on various online forums long ago). Interestingly, Fidelity lets you put your account into "lockdown" mode there they'll reject all ACATS (and ACH too I believe) transfers automatically without your intervention. I've always wondered what kind of legal magic they're pulling to make this compliant with FINRA rules. What eventually convinced me over that it's not a problem is, as Patrick says, that these institutions will with high likelihood make you whole for fraudulent transfers, the same way they will for fraudulent ACH. The financial system generally works.

vineyardmike 2y ago
> these institutions will with high likelihood make you whole for fraudulent transfers, the same way they will for fraudulent ACH. The financial system generally works. This applies to so much of the financial system, that it baffles me people worry about the things they do. I have family members that are so scared of card skimming they only pay in cash, and friends who are still too scared of the internet to buy things online.
- cesarb 2y ago
  > This applies to so much of the financial system, that it baffles me people worry about the things they do. That's easy to understand. For the "financial system", $1000 is nothing. For many people, $1000 means the difference between having something to eat or not. Even if you get your money back in the end, not having any money for several days can be a disaster; and the 1% chance that you might not get that back can be too much risk to bear. > I have family members that are so scared of card skimming they only pay in cash That's understandable. With cash, all you can lose is the cash you have in hand at that moment; if your card is skimmed and used without your permission, you can lose up to the card's limit (and perhaps even more, if the limit isn't strictly enforced). You might say that fraudulent transactions will be reversed, but there's always that 1% chance that the other side will somehow manage to convince your bank that the transactions were in fact legitimate. > and friends who are still too scared of the internet to buy things online. When you buy at a store, the goods you bought are in your physical possession at the moment of the payment. When you buy things online, the goods you bought show up days or even weeks later, if they do, and until they arrive, you have no idea whether they're actually what you bought (and that's on top of the "card skimming" risk). Sure, if you have enough resources, you can tolerate losing $1000 of the limit of one of your credit cards for a few days until the charge is reversed (and even, in the worst case, absorb the loss in case that charge isn't reversed), but not everyone can do that. And the perceived risk can be higher than the unknowable real risk; someone who has heard about (or experienced) enough incidents in which money was lost (temporarily or not) will understandably be more reluctant to expose themselves to these risks.
- _lvbh 2y ago
  I once had to starve for 2 days because my bank froze my card over the weekend and being in a new country, had no cash with me (the nearest exchange was too far away by foot) Nowadays I pretty much have the bare minimum in the bank and just spend cash.
  - skybrian 2y ago
    Having multiple, independent payment methods, of any sort, seems like the way to go.
- miki123211 2y ago
  For a lot of people, not having access to anything they currently have in their bank account, which is most of their savings, is actually a quite big deal, even if they can get that money back eventually.
- chiph 2y ago
  I regard this as dealing with differing amounts of annoyance. Fraudulent credit card charge? Pffft - it will get taken care of with maybe two phone calls. Fraudulent debit card charge that leaves me with $8.31 in the bank? Getting up there on the annoyance scale. I have cash to live on for a few days, but it will likely require several phone calls and some outstanding bill-pays may bounce[0]. Someone buying a car with my stolen identity? Hugely annoying. [0] I have a couple of monthly bills that cause a physical check to be printed and mailed. And one of the recipients only checks their mail twice a week so the float time is significant. I deal with them because I must.

preinheimer 2y ago

So many parts of the financial system only work because there’s take-backsies. Taking back a wire transfer seems to basically involve someone at your bank phoning a friend, and it all works in the end.

psychlops 2y ago
The more one learns about how traditional finance works, the more horrifying it becomes.
- supertrope 2y ago
  On a technical basis yes. Finance rests upon a foundation of people emailing around spreadsheets and trust. Much better than new innovative cryptocurrencies that are just a trojan, wallet address typo, or exit scam away from losing your savings.
  - psychlops 2y ago
    As trusting as the traditional finance system is, it seems they still experience exit scams, wire typos, and countless other scams that lose savings. Crypto has a long way to go, but tradfi hasn't solved its own problems. Until then, I guess we'd all better hope our bank representatives have a lot of friends in the industry.
    - astrange 2y ago
      Crypto can't solve its main problem though; it's fundamentally based around not being able to reverse transactions, which means you can't reverse a mistaken or fraudulent transaction, which is the whole reason tradfi works. And I don't think the other stuff makes up for this, even if programmability and flash loans are interesting. (I mean interesting mostly in a bad way.)
      - miki123211 2y ago
        There's nothing in crypto that inherently prevents transaction reversals. This can be implemented as a smart contract on any sufficiently advanced blockchain (definitely Ethereum, not sure about Bitcoin). The way this works is that you put the money in an escrow contract first, designating a trusted third party as an arbiter. If you don't dispute the transaction for a few weeks, the money goes through irreversibly. If you do, the contract "locks up", and the third party can now either decide to send the money on to its destination or return it back to you. The contract is designed in such a way that those are the only things that third party can do with your money, they have no way of taking it for themselves. Either way, they get a small cut for the trouble of adjudicating the transaction. If what you're worried about is wallet hacks, not disingenuous merchants, that's doable too. Instead of storing your money directly in your wallet, you'd have to store it in a smart contract, designed in such a way that your key is the only one that can move money out of it. However, limitations would be placed on the contract with regards to how much money can be moved daily. Such limits would likely be different for transfers to trusted escrow contracts and for irreversible transactions. If you needed to move more money, you could designate a trusted third party (let's say a traditional bank doing traditional bank things for identity verification) as being able to override these limits for you. Again, that would be their only responsibility, they would not have the right to move any of your money without your permission. This essentially relegates a bank to the role of an identity verifier who cannot take control of your money in any possible way except by colluding with a hacker who already has access to your wallet. THe reason none of this exists is ecosystems and network effects, not technical limitations.

CaliforniaKarl 2y ago

Heads-Up for folks trying to get to one of the linked pages: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/mergers-and-acquisitions/matt-levines-money-stuff-the-sec-comes-for-crypto-custody https://news.bloomberglaw.com/mergers-and-acquisitions/matt-... You can get to the same content here: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-02-16/the-sec-comes-for-crypto-custody https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-02-16/the-se... Which was previously posted to HN here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34824986 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34824986

recursive 2y ago

Is it just me, or is that cat song not that good? I listened to it twice, and found it completely unremarkable. A minute later, I can't remember much about it.

patio11 2y ago
De gustibus non est disputandum; there are some things that ruin many people's lives that have no appeal to me, there are some things many people enjoy responsibly that I have learned to stop myself from using because I will not make good decisions over a period of years, and then there was that freaking cat song, which gave me the strongest "WARNING: Your brain is not in control of your response to this song, in a way which is qualitatively different than the usual ways music is moving." when listening to it that I found it remarkable.
- NobodyNada 2y ago
  > I think if you say the words “my cat” to me when I am on my deathbed I will immediately hum three notes. The song is currently ruining my life in a very different sense: I keep listening to the song over and over to try to guess which three notes you're talking about, but I can't for the life of me figure it out. Mind clearing that up for me? (Personally, I definitely see how the song could be perceived as infectiously catchy, but it doesn't seem to do it for me. I think the structure and rhythm are a little too irregular for it to get stuck in my head.)
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 2y ago
    Back in the mid-1990s, I remember a news fluff piece about a woman who claimed to have epileptic seizures in response to hearing Mary Hart's voice (some newstainment journalist/anchor, maybe Entertainment Tonight?). Doctor supposedly confirmed it via experiment (though, now I wonder if the man should've kept his license, seems unsafe). Earworms are probably the same. Specific either to unique brains, or to particular brain neuro-templates.
    - 2y ago

icedchai 2y ago

I had to get a medallion stamp to do an ACATS transfer from broker A to B. I chose to get it at bank C, where I had my checking account, which also happened to own broker D. Of course, the medallions were handled by a sales guy (sorry, financial advisor) working for broker D who then spent an hour trying to convince me I should move my account to them instead. Eventually he finally gave in and sent off the paperwork. It's annoying the hoops you have to go through to get control of your own money.

CaliforniaKarl 2y ago
Reminds me of when I wanted to close my Bank of America account: I didn't know that you needed to make an appointment for that. But indeed, it's my money, I had all the ID-verification paperwork needed, and I was stubborn enough to agree to wait for a clerk to become available. For what it's worth, you may wish to consider a credit union, as it's less likely that a credit union would also own a brokerage.

CaliforniaKarl 2y ago

Fun fact about the Medallion Signature Guarantee: It's not a seal or embossment, like it often is for a notarization. Instead, it's a stamp (like what you see on [0]). It's a big stamp, but it's just a stamp. That's OK, though, because the person making the stamp is keeping a lot of records, so they'll know what they stamped. When I first got my Treasury Direct[1] account, I couldn't verify my identity using their online process, and so I had to mail in FS Form 5444[1]. My local credit union had "Medallion Service" as one of the reasons for booking an appointment (separate from "Notary"), and they were able to take care of it. As mentioned in the article, the person at the credit union asked me for a monetary value. As it was a new Treasury Direct account, I said "$10,000" (the maximum amount of Series I bonds you can get per calendar year). And as implied in the article, my credit union had no problems issuing this, even though they were not involved in Treasury Direct in any way. It's interesting, all the 'little' 'home-grown' ways of identity guarantee that pop up when needed. [0]: https://www.bankofamerica.com/signature-services/medallion-signature-guarantee/ https://www.bankofamerica.com/signature-services/medallion-s... [1]: https://www.treasurydirect.gov/forms/acctauth.pdf https://www.treasurydirect.gov/forms/acctauth.pdf

bostik 2y ago
I'm not in the US, but can fully appreciate the practice. If I were to request to move funds in 6-to-7 figures range across institutions, I absolutely would want the receiving outfit require that I visit my current outfit in person first to authorise such a transfer. Making sure that such visits are smooth and efficient is good service. On a related note, when I got my mortgage in the UK, the issuing bank/lender-arm required me and my wife each to get a Proof Of Being Alive. (I'm not a UK native.) Turns out embassies issue these quite routinely, for a modest fee, and a visit that lasts at most 15 minutes. At the time I found that requirement both confusing and irritating, but in the context of the article, it makes sense. The lender was about to issue a sufficiently large loan to a person with very limited[ß] UK transaction history. On the upside, more recently that same bank/lender prodded and arranged me to get an early, admittedly pretty good fixed deal on my remortgage - two months before the central banks started to hike their rates. Without that early intervention my current rate would be at least three percentage points higher. ß: from the viewpoint of a financial institution, who likely measures customer relationship ages in decades.

daft_pink 2y ago

The other side of this is that I’ve absolutely had a SEC advisor tell me that I couldn’t access my money unless I kept my account with him and the bank had to verify my access to the money if I wanted to transfer it, but if I stayed I could keep it. ACATS ultimately protects the consumer from keeping their money with unscrupulous advisors. I agree with the author that it is totally terrifying, but I feel the assets should be kept with a third party or third party verification service so that the broker isn’t incentivices to “verity” details. I think medallions are a good solution to this problem and like the author of the piece says they are shockingly easy to get. I think that the advisors themselves receiving the money generally have huge relationships with the companies they work with that issue medallions and even the third party companies with relationships with the receiving advisor will generally provide one for free even if the person doesn’t have one.

niederman 2y ago

> Infohazard warning about which I am being absolutely serious Small nit: since this song isn't a fact or idea per se, it would probably be more accurate to call this a cognitohazard.

TwoNineFive 2y ago

People who start sentences with "guys" or "bro".

throwaway290 2y ago

That suno song is not only not an earworm, I can't recall what it even sounds like after 15 minutes...

jessekv 2y ago
Try the top-played suno track, I promise that you will remember all the lyrics for more than 15 minutes. https://suno.com/song/ee467d00-5813-4a74-9792-c9ae4a09d344 https://suno.com/song/ee467d00-5813-4a74-9792-c9ae4a09d344

BiteCode_dev 2y ago

Damn I wish I thought about that title.

piinbinary 2y ago

It's somewhat amusing to look back on my Computer Science education, where they taught us that database transactions are used to ensure bank balances are moved atomically between accounts

elteto 2y ago
I’m sure this is true at some level. Just not _all_ levels. At some point you just can’t connect to the db on the other side because it belongs to a different institution.

mattofak 2y ago

I've had to get a medallion before to move a small retirement account and there were two things I very much did not like about the process: (1) Most institutions require you to have been a member for 6 months before they will grant a medallion. I was transferring money between Fidelity and Schwab. Neither of which have branch offices within an hour of where I live. And I only have a virtual bank. There was no one willing to give me a medallion because I have no local banking relationships. I had to pull a favour with work to get our controller to vouch for me at our business bank. (2) I've done domestic and international wires for much more money without needing anything like a medallion. Why can't I do something like log in to Fidelity and wire the funds across directly? (Also, have fun finding the forms required to transfer your retirement account. Fidelity at least made the process exceptionally difficult, and their customer service agents acted like they didn't know what a Simple IRA was or why one would want to transfer out. Sure there's a page about transferring, but it likes to loop you into the "transfer funds into" flow.)

captainkrtek 2y ago

Definitely unrelated, but am I the only one bugged when an article has a clearly AI generated graphic (eg: misspelled or garbled text)?

rayanjake 2y ago

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