Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Commission proposes to accelerate the rollout of instant payments in euro

ec.europa.eu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 151 posts

Re: Commission proposes to accelerate the rollout of instant payments in euro

#11

Post by MichaelZuo »

newaccount74 wrote: post #6
MichaelZuo wrote: post #3

Interestingly, the claim that: "there is no reason why many citizens and businesses in the EU are not able to send and receive money immediately" is made on the record by the responsible official, Mairead McGuinness, Commissioner for financial services, financial stability and Capital Markets Union. Which seems incorrect as 10 second payments EU-wide obviously require universal adoption of updated IT systems and more…

The tech for instant tranfers is already there, they just charge ridiculous amounts for it. Eg. my bank charges 7€ for an instant transfer, slow transfers are free. This proposal would make all transfers free and instant.

It's impossible to make anything free. The likely outcome is the costs will be moved around so that its paid indirectly.

Re: Commission proposes to accelerate the rollout of instant payments in euro

#12

Post by tpm »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #3

Interestingly, the claim that: "there is no reason why many citizens and businesses in the EU are not able to send and receive money immediately" is made on the record by the responsible official, Mairead McGuinness, Commissioner for financial services, financial stability and Capital Markets Union. Which seems incorrect as 10 second payments EU-wide obviously require universal adoption of updated IT systems and more…

Many banks already provide such possibility within their ecosystem for free. Additionally the faster SEPA payments are already mostly available, but expensive. So all the bits are already there, what is missing is the will of the banks. The situation is similar to the phone roaming fees, where heavy regulatory action was needed to provide best value for customers.

Re: Commission proposes to accelerate the rollout of instant payments in euro

#13

Post by tluyben2 »

newaccount74 wrote: post #4

This will be huge. This will allow anyone to accept digital payments, eg. at a farmers market, using the bank accounts everyone already has. The only thing missing is forcing banks to provide an API for third party integrations, but I think there is a separate proposal on the way for that. Imagine being able to accept instant payments from everyone in the EU, without having to sign up for a service like Stripe or Pay…

Practically this is already the case in many countries; NL to my Revolut or PT accounts is seconds, vice versa too. It works well. But it is not guaranteed. Api would be good; I can imagine visa and mastercard are getting a little bit panicked as this is already trivial and I am using my phone for payments anyway (no idea where my card is) (but still use them of course via NFC).

Re: Commission proposes to accelerate the rollout of instant payments in euro

#14

Post by ulfw »

newaccount74 wrote: post #4

This will be huge. This will allow anyone to accept digital payments, eg. at a farmers market, using the bank accounts everyone already has. The only thing missing is forcing banks to provide an API for third party integrations, but I think there is a separate proposal on the way for that. Imagine being able to accept instant payments from everyone in the EU, without having to sign up for a service like Stripe or Pay…

Hong Kong's Faster Payment System (FPS) is like that. You can even use phone number or email instead of account number (or QR code). Very practical. Money moves instantaneously free of charge.

[1] https://fps.hkicl.com.hk/eng/fps/index.php [2] https://www.hsbc.com.hk/campaigns/fps/

Re: Commission proposes to accelerate the rollout of instant payments in euro

#15

Post by neel8986 »

Instant payment in India (UPI) has been revolutionary. Last month 6.7 billion transaction took place amounting to $138B!! https://www.npci.org.in/what-we-do/upi/product-statistics Every major company tech company ( Google, meta, amazon, flipkart ) wants to be a part of it. This can be a huge opportunity for European startups

Re: Commission proposes to accelerate the rollout of instant payments in euro

#16

Post by radicalbyte »

newaccount74 wrote: post #6
MichaelZuo wrote: post #3

Interestingly, the claim that: "there is no reason why many citizens and businesses in the EU are not able to send and receive money immediately" is made on the record by the responsible official, Mairead McGuinness, Commissioner for financial services, financial stability and Capital Markets Union. Which seems incorrect as 10 second payments EU-wide obviously require universal adoption of updated IT systems and more…

The tech for instant tranfers is already there, they just charge ridiculous amounts for it. Eg. my bank charges 7€ for an instant transfer, slow transfers are free. This proposal would make all transfers free and instant.

Free transfers within some countries are usually instant. That needs to change into always instant and then cross border.

The situation is comparable to mobiles in a decade - it's a profit center for banks, the systems are there but they make more money by getting in the way. So the EU need to step in and regulate this market failure.

Re: Commission proposes to accelerate the rollout of instant payments in euro

#17

Post by ajsnigrutin »

newaccount74 wrote: post #4

This will be huge. This will allow anyone to accept digital payments, eg. at a farmers market, using the bank accounts everyone already has. The only thing missing is forcing banks to provide an API for third party integrations, but I think there is a separate proposal on the way for that. Imagine being able to accept instant payments from everyone in the EU, without having to sign up for a service like Stripe or Pay…

On the other hand, this is another step towards cashless society, where every transaction is tracked by the government.

Re: Commission proposes to accelerate the rollout of instant payments in euro

#18

Post by rieTohgh6 »

akie wrote: post #2

Obviously a good idea that should be implemented immediately.

Are you sure it should implemented immediately?

> with an obligation on providers to verify the match between the bank account number (IBAN) and the name of the beneficiary provided by the payer

This will break a lot of payment flows, currently that verification is rarely enforced. For example I have saved "power company" as receiver's name, the transfers still work since everything besides IBAN is ignored.

Re: Commission proposes to accelerate the rollout of instant payments in euro

#19

Post by yladiz »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #11
newaccount74 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tech for instant tranfers is already there, they just charge ridiculous amounts for it. Eg. my bank charges 7€ for an instant transfer, slow transfers are free. This proposal would make all transfers free and instant.

It's impossible to make anything free. The likely outcome is the costs will be moved around so that its paid indirectly.

Banks already make enough money from interest on loans, they can afford the minor cost of an instant SEPA transfer. The €7 cost that the parent is charged is way too high, I only have to pay €0.5 for the same with my bank, with a cap of €2,000 on the amount of the transfer (above it can only be the slow transfer).

Re: Commission proposes to accelerate the rollout of instant payments in euro

#20

Post by louhike »

newaccount74 wrote: post #6
MichaelZuo wrote: post #3

Interestingly, the claim that: "there is no reason why many citizens and businesses in the EU are not able to send and receive money immediately" is made on the record by the responsible official, Mairead McGuinness, Commissioner for financial services, financial stability and Capital Markets Union. Which seems incorrect as 10 second payments EU-wide obviously require universal adoption of updated IT systems and more…

The tech for instant tranfers is already there, they just charge ridiculous amounts for it. Eg. my bank charges 7€ for an instant transfer, slow transfers are free. This proposal would make all transfers free and instant.

My bank (Boursorama) does free instant transfers, so it’s definitely viable for banks.
Post reply on HN