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Bank transfers as a payment method (2021)

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Re: Bank transfers as a payment method (2021)

#111

Post by nomel »

RandallBrown wrote: post #28
dyates wrote: post #22

As a South African, it's weird seeing this presented as a strange/futuristic idea. I pay most of my bills through bank transfers and it's the standard way for two people with bank accounts to send money to each other. As long as you know someone's bank and account number, you can send them money. All local online retailers, investment brokers, etc, support bank transfers, with some[1] even providing discounts for pay…

> As long as you know someone's bank and account number, you can send them money. This works in the US just fine as well, although you probably need to go to a bank to do it. I've also been given the option to pay plenty of bills through bank transfers but usually choose not to if I can use my credit card for the same price.

> This works in the US just fine as well, although you probably need to go to a bank to do it.

Venmo and the like exist because that's not "fine". If you have the same bank, there's a good chance you can do it online, or with some crappy third party app. If you have different banks, there's a very slim chance they use the same crappy third party app, leaving you driving in person to initiate a digital transaction that usually takes between a few days to a week to clear.

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method (2021)

#112

Post by freddie_mercury »

bscphil wrote: post #47
zubairshaik wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of banks are competing with Venmo and Cashapp. They use Zelle[1], it's zero-fee and included in most bank apps already. But it's not intended for business payments like Stripe or PayPal, or Venmo for business. [1] https://www.zellepay.com/get-started

Correct me if this is wrong, but I've read somewhere that Zelle gives you no recourse in the event of fraudulent transfers. This makes me extremely reticent to use it, or even use a bank that provides access to it without a signup process.

No it isn't true anymore. They have changed policy, albeit relatively recently.

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method (2021)

#113

Post by astrange »

anaganisk wrote: post #34
godelski wrote: post #23

I've always wondered why big banks don't implement a lot more technologies, and I guess this gets to some of it. But it does seem like banks would have the incentives to kill services like Venmo and Stripe overnight. Like why are there not clear and straightforward banking APIs that let me create virtual cards and why doesn't my app let me just transfer money directly to my friend's bank account (I get global being a…

India has done this for more than a decade at this point with IMPS and NEFT, and recently UPI. And I'm sure several other countries have them too, but for some reason the US chooses to remain backwards in this case.

The US has had multiple instant payment methods for years. Zelle is not the only one, debit cards are another.

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method (2021)

#114

Post by astrange »

mousetree wrote: post #12
metadat wrote: post #2

In case you missed the other articles and discussions from this site, they are numerous and occasionally highly informative: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Am I the online one who finds them a bit verbose and meandering?

He's very proud of his strange Twitter threading style where he asks himself questions then answers them in a way that makes all the threads three times longer than necessary.

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method (2021)

#115

Post by toomuchtodo »

freddie_mercury wrote: post #112
bscphil wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct me if this is wrong, but I've read somewhere that Zelle gives you no recourse in the event of fraudulent transfers. This makes me extremely reticent to use it, or even use a bank that provides access to it without a signup process.

No it isn't true anymore. They have changed policy, albeit relatively recently.

Forced to adhere to existing Regulation E (12 CFR Part 1005) under regulatory pressure.

https://www.consumerfinance.gov/rules-policy/regulations/100...

https://www.zellepay.com/financial-education/pay-it-safe/und...

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method (2021)

#116

Post by toomuchtodo »

cubefox wrote: post #103
toomuchtodo wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some history, the biggest US banks built Zelle as a consortium because the Fed didn’t, and the Fed built FedNow because Congress didn’t want community banks beholden to the big banks for access to this capability.

Zelle? Is this the old name of RTP?

They are distinct value transfer rails, but some Zelle payment flow currently does traverse the RTP system currently.

https://www.aciworldwide.com/real-time-payments-for-the-us

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method (2021)

#117

Post by astrange »

AtNightWeCode wrote: post #107
kelnos wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't get why this is so hard for some people to understand. It's simple: when I pay with a credit card, the money is still in my possession. If the merchant screws up or there is fraud, I can dispute the charge and get resolution without any money leaving my bank account. On top of that, I get cash back and other benefits/rewards from using a credit card (like extended warranties and insurance on the things…

"I can dispute the charge and get resolution without any money leaving my bank account." Really? In what cases can an average credit card user challenge a payment that has not already occurred? If there is a fraud usually it is quick to get money back if debit cards were used.

In all cases. What's the problem?

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method (2021)

#118

Post by ggm »

Australian banking regulator appears to think there is a natural floor cost of interbank payment settlement, which I am going to call "rent" and basically said as long as it doesn't exceed some metric for CPI related costs, it's fine to charge it no matter what the impact on transactions.

This is a loaded comment, because I think it's bullshit. The cost to process any payment of any size under the $10,000 AML threshold is constant, and functionally zero. As consumers, we've become a profit centre, and there is between $600m and $1b of "cost" which is being met by a % value of transaction fee, irrespective of the real costs of operation. It's regulated theft. Tax office loves it because the black economy is shrinking, small traders are wearing processing costs, intermediaries like stripe are hoovering up data, alongside p2p and inter account direct debit and payment models. Credit unions and banks have an uneasy alliance with "key" and "associated" status to inter bank clearing data networks.

The direct payment scheme we have (osko/payid: typically Australia they couldn't decide a single branding) is seconds to complete sometimes and competes with other forms of transaction clearing for cost and time.

We still have chequebook process clearing times. We still have "not on weekend" and "3 business day" rules. It's totally Bizarre.

When they spun credit and debit card fees out from each other I asked some questions of the finance regulators and they said "works for us, cheaper overall" but I think they left this $600m+ profit component in on bogus logic:

Tl;Dr real costs of settlement per transaction do not relate to how costs are met. Banking is highly profitable and is a protected industry under a benign regulator.

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method (2021)

#119

Post by davchana »

kasey_junk wrote: post #39
dyates wrote: post #22

As a South African, it's weird seeing this presented as a strange/futuristic idea. I pay most of my bills through bank transfers and it's the standard way for two people with bank accounts to send money to each other. As long as you know someone's bank and account number, you can send them money. All local online retailers, investment brokers, etc, support bank transfers, with some[1] even providing discounts for pay…

The comparison between SA bank transactions and UPI is pretty superficial. Precisely because the sender needs to know banking details about the receiver and to confirm the transaction on the receiver side you need access to the receivers bank data. UPI does not require either of those! It’s pretty great, and what modern bank transfers will look like. SA bank transfers, like non-US bank transfers, are newer, cheaper a…

True. UPI is amazing. The Zelle in US is similar, but lacks in that private group of banks control it, whereas UPI central processing is public or government controlled. Also, zelle is not implemented same in every bank. For a person with multiple accounts in same bank, Capital One allows a unique email address for directing zelle txns to each unique account. Discover allows that specific mapping only if initiated from discover itself. Chase does not allow you to have zelle connected to more than 1 account of yours.

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method (2021)

#120

Post by grecy »

emptybits wrote: post #53
AlexandrB wrote: post #7

Would be interesting to know how Canada's Interac e-transfers[1] compare to the Indian or Japanese systems. Probably the biggest inconvenience of Canada's system it the need to use an email address as the destination. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interac_e-Transfer

For all of Canada's chartered banking bureaucracy and lack of customer empathy ... I have to say that our e-transfer system is pretty amazing. For business or personal, one-off or regular transfers. It just works.

I do find it funny that to deposit an e-transfer in Canada you get an email, are required to click a link in that email and then login to your internet banking with your username and password.

Straight out of the "NEVER EVER do that" playbook.

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