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Personally, I think US banking needs something an Uber or AirBnB style shake-up to get their act in order. It's awful how behind the times the US is when it co

Personally, I think US banking needs something an Uber or AirBnB style shake-up to get their act in order. It's awful how behind the times the US is when it comes to banking. 2 - 3 days to get money from one account to another is beyond embarrassing in the modern day. It took the US something like 15 years to get chip-and-pin. Banks are still these monolithic entities that don't care to innovate or listen to customers because "what are you going to do, go to one of the other 4 monoliths that are all in cahoots with each other"

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
9dev 1y ago
Other countries managed to regulate their banks to innovate just fine without blockchain technology, though. It doesn’t always need a startup to disrupt something by flipping the finger to lawmakers. Sometimes humble regulation is enough. Take SEPA as an example: I can transfer money free of charge to any European bank account, in a few seconds.
- input_sh 1y ago
  To be fair, European Central Bank also wants to introduce its own official Euro-backed "stablecoin" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_euro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_euro), mostly because they are scared of the posibility that Dollar-backed stablecoins could make Euros less relevant in the future (https://www.politico.eu/article/lagardes-euro-moment-busted-by-stablecoins/ https://www.politico.eu/article/lagardes-euro-moment-busted-...).
- latchkey 1y ago
  Small money is fine. Any big transaction will get flagged and potentially delayed. I don't know about you, but I'd rather use a system that allows me to do what I want with my funds without anyone else controlling it.
  - degamad 1y ago
    > I don't know about you, but I'd rather use a system that allows me to do what I want with my funds without anyone else controlling it. How do we know that this unusual transaction is you doing what you want and not someone else controlling and defrauding you? A small well-understood amount of friction that significantly reduces everyone's risk is not an attempt to control your funds. Old systems with arbitrary delays based on twentieth century processes should be replaced, but not everything needs immediate infinite speed to be valuable.
    - latchkey 1y ago
      > How do we know that this unusual transaction is you doing what you want and not someone else controlling and defrauding you? That's what they'd like you to believe, but fact of the matter is that you're still not protected. For example, at my last company, the finance department was phished into changing a bank account number and transferred $50k to another account. Bank just shrugged.
      - throwaway2037 1y ago
        Did they get the 50K back?
        latchkey 1y ago
        Not to my knowledge.
  - vintermann 1y ago
    Do you want to live in a world where everyone else can do whatever they want with their funds without anyone else controlling it, though? Seems pretty optimistic for anyone to think they'd do well in that world.
    - latchkey 1y ago
      I want to live in a world where responsible, law abiding citizens can use their money however they choose. In the US, we already have credit scores, a system meant to reflect some sort of trustworthiness. Right now, it mostly determines your interest rates and access to capital. But why not extend that trust to granting people more freedom in how they use their funds? If I want a large loan from my bank, I’m forced to provide endless paperwork and deal with people, despite having a great credit score. In DeFi, I just post collateral and instantly borrow against it. No gatekeepers, no conversations. These limitations become even more obvious if you’re a nomad or frequent traveler. Suddenly you’re not just facing your local government, you’re up against borders and layers of extra regulation.
- sunshine-o 1y ago
  > Sometimes humble regulation is enough. Take SEPA as an example: I can transfer money free of charge to any European bank account, in a few seconds. SEPA was a success but it was only a first step to modernise the banking system. The following regulations/directives like PSD2 failed in my opinion. The ECB also had one of those CBDC built much earlier than people have been told. They already had something quite advanced around 2020, with a optimist launch date in 2022 I believe. It obviously failed miserably and I read a few weeks ago that they are "exploring Ethereum and Solana for digital euro launch". I would be curious what happened exactly but my guess is the banks just said "NO WAY".
  - Kbelicius 1y ago
    > The ECB also had one of those CBDC built much earlier than people have been told. They already had something quite advanced around 2020, with a optimist launch date in 2022 I believe. > It obviously failed miserably They had a CBDC but hid it from everyone... but then somehow it failed miserably. If it wasn't released, how? They even had it before they decided to have it (2021). This seems just like a load of bullshit.
    - sunshine-o 1y ago
      When they saw Bitcoin and Ethereum they obviously understood a great disruption was coming and acted on it. SWIFT too. A Central Bank do not share everything they consider/plan with the public. It is not really hidden or secret, but they also do not make a press release about it. Also if they are fundamentally gonna transform our banking system they better start early because a lot of things can go wrong. I estimate the time to build such a system is about 10 years if everything goes well. I do not know exactly what went wrong, my guess is the banks pushed back as much as they could because most of them would have been made irrelevant under that model. Now they are talking about Ethereum and Solana because they understood they have to fight against the Dollar in this arena.
  - Saline9515 1y ago
    SEPA allows this in theory; in practice, for amounts >10k€, most banks will require you to provide proofs for the transaction due to the maximalist AML laws in the EU. My bank requires me to download a PDF on their website, print it, fill it out by hand, scan it, and then send it by mail. After a few days, someone will decide to allow it (or not). If it is refused, I don't get any reason why and have to call the client service for clues.
- snitty 1y ago
  US banks literally collapsed the world financial system in 2008. You don't deserve humble regulation after that. They got, and they deserved, the Dodd-Frank Act, which has now been significantly rolled back.
skritched 1y ago
What other countries are you comparing to? I did a multi year assignment in Germany and holy fucking hell does their banking system suck. It took weeks for my checks to be deposited and reconciliation times were longer. Not defending the US here by my only non-US banking experience was atrocious.
- consp 1y ago
  You take a bad example and compare it to another bad example. Germany is well known to be behind the curve like the US. It's the only western European country I still bring a healthy amount cash when I go there. Wouldn't be the first time I had to pay parking with cash in recent times. Every where else this is a non issue. It's rapidly changing though, but I don't like the common in use PIN terminals as they have no way of hiding the PIN entry.
  - cycomanic 1y ago
    Now I'm not generally a big defender of Germany, but the reason for much more prevalent use of cash is largely privacy in Germany. And I sort of agree that handing all monetary transactions to the mastercard/visa duopoly is a terrible idea. We are essentially trading the convinience of a tap for increased prices and unelected gatekeepers that can (and will) easily push sectors out of business, because they don't like what they do. Regarding the parking, I much rather would be able to pay with cash than the $2 parking plus 50 cents cc transaction fee that you have to pay in many places in NZ.
- cycomanic 1y ago
  The question is why did you use cheques? I don't know anyone who is not American who has used cheques in the last 20 years or so. I have not been living in Germany in a long time so I can't talk much about the banking system, but I have had transfers with German friends and family which never took more than maybe a day or 2 within Europe.
kccqzy 1y ago
Banks have banded together to create Zelle for mostly instantaneous payments for individuals. As far as transactions between individuals, moving money quickly is a solved money. As for moving money from individuals to businesses, taking a long time gives customers more "float" and more time to earn interest, and it is a feature not a bug.
- FireBeyond 1y ago
  Banks banded together to create Zelle to offload most fraud risk onto individuals. They used "mostly instantaneous payments" as the carrot to get those individuals to use the service. Banks have near zero obligations around Zelle transaction fraud - if they do anything, it's often mostly as a goodwill gesture for a customer.
- derangedHorse 1y ago
  There are other issues to consider in the payments world. For example, I may not want my payment data to be used for marketing purposes[1] or have my payment processor block my steam purchases[2]. I'm skeptical that Stripe will deliver on those gaps though. [1] https://www.gao.gov/blog/why-do-banks-share-your-financial-information-and-are-they-allowed https://www.gao.gov/blog/why-do-banks-share-your-financial-i... [2] https://www.thegamer.com/paypal-not-accepting-most-currencies-steam/ https://www.thegamer.com/paypal-not-accepting-most-currencie...
devmor 1y ago
Neither Uber nor AirBnB got anyone’s “act in order”. Uber just captured wealth via operating at a loss until competition was absorbed or destroyed. AirBnB just helped further drive up the prices of single family homes and didn’t really have much effect on the hospitality industry at all - it caused a minor observable loss in profit which ultimately resulted in nothing.
- chrchr 1y ago
  Outside of maybe NYC, taxi service in the U.S. was totally unreliable before Uber/Lyft. It's not even a matter of price. It's so much easier to get a ride now in most of the country. I don't think AirB&B really improved hotels, but it did organize and centralize the "vacation rental" market, making it easier to, for example, rent a beach cottage for the weekend.
  - devmor 1y ago
    Existing Taxi services did not improve - they were replaced by a lower quality, more expensive alternative with a lesser economic infusion to local economies. Hotels and the hospitality industry did not improve at all. None of those points refute me or support the argument I was contesting - that a “uber or airbnb of banking” would cause banks to “get their act in order”.
    - CamperBob2 1y ago
      they were replaced by a lower quality, more expensive alternative That's certainly... an opinion.
ac29 1y ago
> 2 - 3 days to get money from one account to another is beyond embarrassing in the modern day I've had next day ACH between all my various accounts for years now. Wires have also been a thing basically forever though most people need to pay to send and receive them. Same day ACH and FedNow are both out there too, though I've yet to see widespread implementation.
- hippo77 1y ago
  Try international transfers and get back to me
corimaith 1y ago
The activities you listed are not the main business of a bank. It's getting deposits and loaning them out with interest. In that regard, they are very successful and it's hard to see how Uber or AirBnB would do better given the disaster of microfinancing.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

9dev 1y ago

Other countries managed to regulate their banks to innovate just fine without blockchain technology, though. It doesn’t always need a startup to disrupt something by flipping the finger to lawmakers. Sometimes humble regulation is enough. Take SEPA as an example: I can transfer money free of charge to any European bank account, in a few seconds.

input_sh 1y ago
To be fair, European Central Bank also wants to introduce its own official Euro-backed "stablecoin" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_euro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_euro), mostly because they are scared of the posibility that Dollar-backed stablecoins could make Euros less relevant in the future (https://www.politico.eu/article/lagardes-euro-moment-busted-by-stablecoins/ https://www.politico.eu/article/lagardes-euro-moment-busted-...).
latchkey 1y ago
Small money is fine. Any big transaction will get flagged and potentially delayed. I don't know about you, but I'd rather use a system that allows me to do what I want with my funds without anyone else controlling it.
- degamad 1y ago
  > I don't know about you, but I'd rather use a system that allows me to do what I want with my funds without anyone else controlling it. How do we know that this unusual transaction is you doing what you want and not someone else controlling and defrauding you? A small well-understood amount of friction that significantly reduces everyone's risk is not an attempt to control your funds. Old systems with arbitrary delays based on twentieth century processes should be replaced, but not everything needs immediate infinite speed to be valuable.
  - latchkey 1y ago
    > How do we know that this unusual transaction is you doing what you want and not someone else controlling and defrauding you? That's what they'd like you to believe, but fact of the matter is that you're still not protected. For example, at my last company, the finance department was phished into changing a bank account number and transferred $50k to another account. Bank just shrugged.
    - throwaway2037 1y ago
      Did they get the 50K back?
      - latchkey 1y ago
        Not to my knowledge.
- vintermann 1y ago
  Do you want to live in a world where everyone else can do whatever they want with their funds without anyone else controlling it, though? Seems pretty optimistic for anyone to think they'd do well in that world.
  - latchkey 1y ago
    I want to live in a world where responsible, law abiding citizens can use their money however they choose. In the US, we already have credit scores, a system meant to reflect some sort of trustworthiness. Right now, it mostly determines your interest rates and access to capital. But why not extend that trust to granting people more freedom in how they use their funds? If I want a large loan from my bank, I’m forced to provide endless paperwork and deal with people, despite having a great credit score. In DeFi, I just post collateral and instantly borrow against it. No gatekeepers, no conversations. These limitations become even more obvious if you’re a nomad or frequent traveler. Suddenly you’re not just facing your local government, you’re up against borders and layers of extra regulation.
sunshine-o 1y ago
> Sometimes humble regulation is enough. Take SEPA as an example: I can transfer money free of charge to any European bank account, in a few seconds. SEPA was a success but it was only a first step to modernise the banking system. The following regulations/directives like PSD2 failed in my opinion. The ECB also had one of those CBDC built much earlier than people have been told. They already had something quite advanced around 2020, with a optimist launch date in 2022 I believe. It obviously failed miserably and I read a few weeks ago that they are "exploring Ethereum and Solana for digital euro launch". I would be curious what happened exactly but my guess is the banks just said "NO WAY".
- Kbelicius 1y ago
  > The ECB also had one of those CBDC built much earlier than people have been told. They already had something quite advanced around 2020, with a optimist launch date in 2022 I believe. > It obviously failed miserably They had a CBDC but hid it from everyone... but then somehow it failed miserably. If it wasn't released, how? They even had it before they decided to have it (2021). This seems just like a load of bullshit.
  - sunshine-o 1y ago
    When they saw Bitcoin and Ethereum they obviously understood a great disruption was coming and acted on it. SWIFT too. A Central Bank do not share everything they consider/plan with the public. It is not really hidden or secret, but they also do not make a press release about it. Also if they are fundamentally gonna transform our banking system they better start early because a lot of things can go wrong. I estimate the time to build such a system is about 10 years if everything goes well. I do not know exactly what went wrong, my guess is the banks pushed back as much as they could because most of them would have been made irrelevant under that model. Now they are talking about Ethereum and Solana because they understood they have to fight against the Dollar in this arena.
- Saline9515 1y ago
  SEPA allows this in theory; in practice, for amounts >10k€, most banks will require you to provide proofs for the transaction due to the maximalist AML laws in the EU. My bank requires me to download a PDF on their website, print it, fill it out by hand, scan it, and then send it by mail. After a few days, someone will decide to allow it (or not). If it is refused, I don't get any reason why and have to call the client service for clues.
snitty 1y ago
US banks literally collapsed the world financial system in 2008. You don't deserve humble regulation after that. They got, and they deserved, the Dodd-Frank Act, which has now been significantly rolled back.

skritched 1y ago

What other countries are you comparing to? I did a multi year assignment in Germany and holy fucking hell does their banking system suck. It took weeks for my checks to be deposited and reconciliation times were longer. Not defending the US here by my only non-US banking experience was atrocious.

consp 1y ago
You take a bad example and compare it to another bad example. Germany is well known to be behind the curve like the US. It's the only western European country I still bring a healthy amount cash when I go there. Wouldn't be the first time I had to pay parking with cash in recent times. Every where else this is a non issue. It's rapidly changing though, but I don't like the common in use PIN terminals as they have no way of hiding the PIN entry.
- cycomanic 1y ago
  Now I'm not generally a big defender of Germany, but the reason for much more prevalent use of cash is largely privacy in Germany. And I sort of agree that handing all monetary transactions to the mastercard/visa duopoly is a terrible idea. We are essentially trading the convinience of a tap for increased prices and unelected gatekeepers that can (and will) easily push sectors out of business, because they don't like what they do. Regarding the parking, I much rather would be able to pay with cash than the $2 parking plus 50 cents cc transaction fee that you have to pay in many places in NZ.
cycomanic 1y ago
The question is why did you use cheques? I don't know anyone who is not American who has used cheques in the last 20 years or so. I have not been living in Germany in a long time so I can't talk much about the banking system, but I have had transfers with German friends and family which never took more than maybe a day or 2 within Europe.

kccqzy 1y ago

Banks have banded together to create Zelle for mostly instantaneous payments for individuals. As far as transactions between individuals, moving money quickly is a solved money. As for moving money from individuals to businesses, taking a long time gives customers more "float" and more time to earn interest, and it is a feature not a bug.

FireBeyond 1y ago
Banks banded together to create Zelle to offload most fraud risk onto individuals. They used "mostly instantaneous payments" as the carrot to get those individuals to use the service. Banks have near zero obligations around Zelle transaction fraud - if they do anything, it's often mostly as a goodwill gesture for a customer.
derangedHorse 1y ago
There are other issues to consider in the payments world. For example, I may not want my payment data to be used for marketing purposes[1] or have my payment processor block my steam purchases[2]. I'm skeptical that Stripe will deliver on those gaps though. [1] https://www.gao.gov/blog/why-do-banks-share-your-financial-information-and-are-they-allowed https://www.gao.gov/blog/why-do-banks-share-your-financial-i... [2] https://www.thegamer.com/paypal-not-accepting-most-currencies-steam/ https://www.thegamer.com/paypal-not-accepting-most-currencie...

devmor 1y ago

Neither Uber nor AirBnB got anyone’s “act in order”. Uber just captured wealth via operating at a loss until competition was absorbed or destroyed. AirBnB just helped further drive up the prices of single family homes and didn’t really have much effect on the hospitality industry at all - it caused a minor observable loss in profit which ultimately resulted in nothing.

chrchr 1y ago
Outside of maybe NYC, taxi service in the U.S. was totally unreliable before Uber/Lyft. It's not even a matter of price. It's so much easier to get a ride now in most of the country. I don't think AirB&B really improved hotels, but it did organize and centralize the "vacation rental" market, making it easier to, for example, rent a beach cottage for the weekend.
- devmor 1y ago
  Existing Taxi services did not improve - they were replaced by a lower quality, more expensive alternative with a lesser economic infusion to local economies. Hotels and the hospitality industry did not improve at all. None of those points refute me or support the argument I was contesting - that a “uber or airbnb of banking” would cause banks to “get their act in order”.
  - CamperBob2 1y ago
    they were replaced by a lower quality, more expensive alternative That's certainly... an opinion.

ac29 1y ago

> 2 - 3 days to get money from one account to another is beyond embarrassing in the modern day I've had next day ACH between all my various accounts for years now. Wires have also been a thing basically forever though most people need to pay to send and receive them. Same day ACH and FedNow are both out there too, though I've yet to see widespread implementation.

hippo77 1y ago
Try international transfers and get back to me

corimaith 1y ago

The activities you listed are not the main business of a bank. It's getting deposits and loaning them out with interest. In that regard, they are very successful and it's hard to see how Uber or AirBnB would do better given the disaster of microfinancing.