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Bank transfers as a payment method

bam.kalzumeus.com

111–120 of 335 posts

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method

#111
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a one time authorization Yes, but how well defined, or how loose, is that "authorization"?

The account owner can control the frequency and the maximum amount per period. It's not the case that some random entity can just grab all your money.

> The account owner can control

Unfortunately, that depends on the implementation of security the bank adopted. I assume you are mentioning a detail in the PSD2 directive. The banks, especially after national legislation following the directive, may adapt but not overlap it.

Take as an example the rule in the directive, that NFC based payments should require PIN based confirmation every five transactions: not all banks implemented this.

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method

#112
post #64

When discussing Europe, you can't leave out the rise of mobile payments that work similar to India's UPI. For instance, in Sweden, "Swish"[0] has quickly taken over the market for casual payments, with free, instant, irreversible bank transfers between individuals using only the recipients phone number (or a QR code). They are a bunch of these systems, but currently they are all fractured into national systems, altho…

MobilePay in Denmark: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MobilePay

Also in Finland.

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method

#113
Odd not to touch on Open Banking and PSD2 in Europe; as that is basically the future he is talking about.

In essence; financial institutions are legislated to add customer friendly UX and fraud prevention on top of standard bank to bank transfers. It's effectively a set of APIs that orchestrate it all, with things like dynamic linking to the payment and secure authentication rules for anti fraud.

The idea is for commercial offerings to build on top of the standard APIs (for example, to offer bank transfers in checkouts). In practice it's taking a bit to get off the ground - but providers like Tink (sold to Visa for a lot of money) and Truelayer and starting to get traction.

Australia and MENA region are heading down the same route.

https://www.openbanking.org.uk/

Edit; for clarity, SEPA was the early moves to normalise what the European banks were doing from around 2008 onwards - and ended up with PSD1 rationalising it. As others have said this blog mostly only actually focuses on the direct debit element of SEPA not the credit payment side.

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method

#114
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government payments in the Netherlands can be done in installments using direct payments, but the direct debit ones are the easiest and that is why many people use them. Far less chance of missing a payment. But if you want to do it yourself for every payment you can. Better not miss any though.

_If_ you get your salary on/before the 25th. Because changing the invoice date is almost never possible, and government agencies are even explicit about that.

If you live that close to zero you have other problems. I would highly recommend reviewing your finances in great detail to figure out how you are going to create a small buffer.

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SEPA 'pull', aka merchant initiated transfers require a one time authorization, repeat debits require a one time authorization for the first payment and can be re-run afterwards (used for subscriptions), and can be revoked up to 90 days after the payment was done.

> a one time authorization Yes, but how well defined, or how loose, is that "authorization"?

With my bank that requires me to use a device they sent me (a hardware token), my bank card, my pin and a secondary authorization where I use the hardware token to process a challenge and then type in the response.

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method

#116
post #75

The article is factually incorrect when it talks about "SEPA payments", claiming they are a "pull" mechanism. What it probably meant to talk about, is SEPA Direct Debits -- where the counterpart charges your account, as opposed to you paying the counterpart. Given that these direct debit agreements are revokable at any point in time, I doubt the claims of very high fraud rate. A normal SEPA payment, is a "push" affai…

> Most banks charge a hefty fee for an instant payment (mine charges €1.25). Interesting. In my country (Finland) all banks that have joined the TIPS (SEPA Instant Settlement) always use it automatically if the destination bank supports it as well - at no extra charge to the account holder of course. Are you sure you are talking about TIPS / SCT Inst payments? Either way, your bank is not allowed to charge extra fees…

Yep. Entirely depends on the bank - in France neobanks ( e.g. Boursorama, Aumax, Fortuneo, N26 ) have them for free, while old banks usually charge you a small fee.

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method

#117

Australia's New Payment Platform performs bank transfers instantly, and can use email address, phone number, or business ID as a destination (the recipient must first have registered this with their bank). No fees. It's pretty decent. https://www.rba.gov.au/payments-and-infrastructure/new-payme...

There is a delay of first transactions. PayID is what it it is called for most banks.

I believe it is 24 hours for the first, then instant after that.

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method

#118

If pay with debit card you are doing a bank transfer. Maybe in the US most people are using credit cards but in EU many are using debit cards.

Sort of in the sense it comes from your bank account; but the settlement process is different, and can take longer.

Faster Payments (bank transfers in the UK) for example settle 3 times per day and are intended to be instant.

Debit cards usually settle daily and there can be a delay; which is why you will see an Auth on your account (card payments go; Auth to lock the money, Payment to set up the payment, and Settlement to move the actual cash). This is why the EU mandated banks start to show actual funds available (balance less all auths and other pending payments) as it can sometimes take days to settle debit card payments and people can be unsure of their balance.

In general, finance is an example of the "99 standards" error; in that every so often new standards come in to fix things but just add another approach to the mix (don't get me started on Direct Debits!)

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd have to agree. Everything in the article about Europe is technically correct, but it is such a small slice of the SEPA payments. The article is so misleading it might as well be wrong. I make payments to the benelux, france, germany, spain and poland, and they go all over the push mechanism. Direct debit is for utilities, and that's about it. For fraud, my bank provides a gui with active agreements. While I can't…

My bank in Norway (SBanken, formerly Skandia Bank) allows me to specify a maximum amount that any creditor can ask for per month when using the equivalent of direct debits (and I also get notified in advance of every payment so that I can cancel either the individual payment or the whole agreement if I wish. This is all done via the web or app and takes effect immediately, no need to ask anyone at the bank to do anyt…

«AvtaleGiro» is such a time saver. Utilities, electricity, internet, road tax, insurance and almost all kinds of recurring payments happens automatically and electronically.

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method

#120
post #75

The article is factually incorrect when it talks about "SEPA payments", claiming they are a "pull" mechanism. What it probably meant to talk about, is SEPA Direct Debits -- where the counterpart charges your account, as opposed to you paying the counterpart. Given that these direct debit agreements are revokable at any point in time, I doubt the claims of very high fraud rate. A normal SEPA payment, is a "push" affai…

It's even worse than that in terms of correctness, because the author confuses the EU ( economic and political bloc), Europe ( the continent) and the eurozone ( countries in a monetary union with the single currency, euro). SEPA is a thing for euro-denominated transfers in the EU and some extra countries ( UK, Norway, etc.).

Belarus, a country in Europe, but outside the EU and eurozone, aren't in SEPA . Romania, inside the EU but not in the eurozone, are in SEPA. Montenegro are outside of the EU and eurozone, use the euro, but aren't in SEPA.

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