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Bank transfers as a payment method

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Re: Bank transfers as a payment method

#151

Post by Hamuko »

hyperman1 wrote: post #96
elric wrote: 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…

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…

>Direct debit is for utilities, and that's about it.

I think the only party that can draw money directly from my bank account is my bank itself for my mortgage. For everything else, I have e-invoices, where the invoice comes directly to my bank account, so I receive a paper invoice maybe once a year from somewhere. And for e-invoices I can just set auto-accept limits, so any phone bill that is less than 10€ will get automatically accepted and for any phone bills greater than 10€, I need to manually accept it on my bank's website/app.

Actually, I have SEPA Direct Debit disabled on my bank account settings now that I checked it, so I guess I've never used it. I guess my bank just has direct access anyways for mortgage payments.

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method

#152

Post by eisbaw »

Does any European bank actually have a public API?

My bank (Danske Bank) does not. Even the first step of logging-in with our digital sign-on (NemID) is a bit tricky to automate. (MitID's rsa key fob might make it easier)

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method

#153

Post by odiroot »

hyperman1 wrote: post #96
elric wrote: 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…

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…

> 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.

SEPA direct debit is a really really popular thing in Germany. Most utilities prefer (quite understandably) to pull from you instead of waiting for your transfer. Even landlords usually give you an agreement form to pull your rent out of your account.

I got used to that and recently tried to use a Polish bank account to pay on Amazon and surprisingly it didn't work. Amazon has sent me an automated email with a demand for a (push) transfer, sadly with added fee for the trouble.

Most people in Poland actually do transfers manually, direct debit is not really a thing. On the other hand there's this BLIK thing for instant transfers, even across banks.

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method

#154

Post by csomar »

louwhopley wrote: post #63

Bank-to-bank money transfers in South Africa is a mostly solved problem. (Electronic funds transfer/known as EFT locally) - payments above coffee-shop prices often happen by EFT. - it arrives within 2 days, bank sends proof of payment instantly and sellers accept that as sufficient proof. - can opt to send instantaneously which reflects within seconds to minutes (for a small fee, like ~$1). - non reversible - need ba…

For a "third-world" country, South Africa has a quite developed financial infrastructure. This might be due to its historical links to the UK or by having a wealthy and connected elites.

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method

#155

Post by ngcc_hk »

Not sure what rubbish he is talking about.

No doubt some money transfer need a caution media like property sale and Bitcoin etc. Most just a matter of efficiency. We can use cheque in one stage. But move to credit card. Then for quit awhile nos many places use debt card. And many places has its location specific stored value card Oyster card, octopus card, ..

Credit card elimination is a possibility in fact. Hence these days even credit card for low value transaction so to involved.

Elimination of middle man and use it in an appropriate manner by finding suitable way is always. From shell to …

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method

#156

Post by fxtentacle »

hyperman1 wrote: post #96
elric wrote: 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…

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…

Fully agree. In Germany we have a widely used push mechanism (giropay) where you approve the online payment using an app or a dedicated hardware device. It's instant, free for buyer and seller, push, and requires explicit consent for each transfer from the buyer.

It's supported by all major electronics stores. The only exception is Amazon who will do a SEPA pull instead. But there the bank grants you 6 weeks to cancel the deduction if you want to.

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method

#157

Post by xioxox »

hyperman1 wrote: post #96
elric wrote: 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…

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…

Interestingly, some of the in-person debit card payments I make from my German bank appear to work internally as direct debits. They appear as "SEPA-ELV-LASTSCHRIFT" on statement. Other card payments are just called "KARTENZAHLUNG". Interestingly, the Lastschrift (direct debit) payments seem reversible on my bank interface, so I could get the money back (presumably invoking letters from the company and debt collectors).

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method

#158

Post by patio11 »

greenyoda wrote: post #7
jacquesm wrote: post #3

Wait, didn't Patrick ask for his stuff not to be posted to HN anymore? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29122338 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29041030

Neither of those comments ask for the articles not to be posted to HN. They both ask for people to be "selective in submitting these", which I understand to mean: don't submit every single one indiscriminately, just the ones that would be of particular interest to the HN community.

Yep. In particular I’d like to only be front paged when I’m writing well relative to my beat and my ability, not just because I have high name recognition or am better than the least interesting thing on the front page, which is a bar I think I’d clear too often to be healthy for the community.

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method

#159

Post by AniseAbyss »

elric wrote: 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…

The only very high fraud rate I ever hear about are credit cards. And that happens because Visacard just washes their hands from it leaving merchants holding the bag.

With SEPA payments fraud would cost the banks money so any company abusing it would be blacklisted.

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method

#160

Post by xyzzy123 »

spir wrote: post #26

Let's adopt patio11's criteria to a programmable public blockchain, like ethereum - Customer UX: crypto wallets built into browsers and phones. Connect your wallet to any webpage to pay. Or, tap your phone to pay via a crypto payment - Certainty: crypto transactions are, by default, instant and irreversible. Any kind of chargeback scheme, refund policy, or time-delay may be built into the crypto app layer - Settlemen…

Just to be clear for anyone not familiar with the space, poster is describing the bright future of tomorrow, not the difficult reality of today. So right now an ETH withdrawal on Binance costs ~ $20.

A lot of people have expressed the sentiment that "the GAS price is too damn high". It is so high that interacting with "useful" stuff like swap contracts or liquidity pools costs $50 - $100 per shot and lots of interesting use cases are shut out because network fees render them uneconomic. It is sort of a burning problem that leaves the ETH of today as a network mainly for purists and whales.

I agree with parent that long term the future looks much brighter.

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