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Bank transfers as a payment method (2021)

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Re: Bank transfers as a payment method (2021)

#151

Post by pepa65 »

refurb wrote: post #145
AtNightWeCode wrote: post #52

Why Americans love credit cards so much is a mystery. In Europe debit cards have been the way to go for a long time. Most countries in Europe also have direct payments through mobile apps.

Why on earth would I use my money (and the risk of fraud) when I could use the banks money, interest free for a month? And if I have a dispute with a business, I can have the credit card company reverse the charge for me? If it's debit, that money is gone. I would never use debit if I could use a credit card. The US system is far superior for consumers.

Only if you faithfully clear your debts every month. Are there any account types that do this automatically?? (Unlikely, I would think...)

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method (2021)

#152

Post by paulusthe »

ggm wrote: post #137
paulusthe wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Your argument fails here, because you are wrong here. The cost is not zero, because what the bank does for interbank payments is subject to the same regulations and procedures as everything else a bank does. Banks charge money for transfers because…

Fine, call it risk cost. Noting, the AML limits were in my statement and the post transfer processing to find multiple conjoint sub AML represent washing is sitting out there. Functionally zero per transaction (sorry I should have been more explicit) obviously there are real world data comms and CPU and compliance costs. They are not "equal" to the amount of revenue the system is extracting. The absence of variance i…

Anyone who runs a business knows you can't just apply your overhead costs to one part of it but not another. If I have to pay the energy bill, that applies whether or not I had the gas on.

You're trying to handwave your way into saying we should care only about the specific cost of one specific bank function, which is silly.

Interbank transactions cost money for the same reason every other service costs money, because you're paying a business to do something for you. Climb off the soapbox and enter reality.

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method (2021)

#153

Post by refurb »

pepa65 wrote: post #151
refurb wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why on earth would I use my money (and the risk of fraud) when I could use the banks money, interest free for a month? And if I have a dispute with a business, I can have the credit card company reverse the charge for me? If it's debit, that money is gone. I would never use debit if I could use a credit card. The US system is far superior for consumers.

Only if you faithfully clear your debts every month. Are there any account types that do this automatically?? (Unlikely, I would think...)

Yes, you can set up auto-pay to automatically pay your bill in full every month.

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method (2021)

#154

Post by carstenhag »

laurencerowe wrote: post #142
mschuster91 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's completely normal and safe in Europe to share your bank account number (IBAN) with others so that they can send you money through online banking. This is how I paid my rent (you can setup a recurring payment, kinda like bill pay but instant and without the risk of a physical check potentially being delayed in the mail); settled up with friends for shared expenses; and got paid for freelance consulting (I'd put…

> Just because everyone does it this doesn't mean it's safe to do. If some trolls manage to get hold of your IBAN and the account isn't protected from direct debit, you will get fucked by idiots ordering pizza and dildos. I don't know anyone who this has ever happened to. Only vetted companies are allowed to perform Direct Debits, e.g. utilities who know your physical address. In the UK (still a member of SEPA even p…

My iban was used 3 weeks ago to buy ~578€ worth of tools via a hardware online store, via a Paypal guest account. For some reason they did not need verification of the account. Perhaps it had to do with this exact Iban being verified with my PayPal account but this account was not hacked or used in any way.

Lidl also had huge issues surrounding sepa debit payments, it was in the media.

Credit card payments are getting more secure by the day in the EU, and direct debit is still a piece of rubbish.

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method (2021)

#155

Post by hyperman1 »

laurencerowe wrote: post #42

> The Single Europe Payment Area (SEPA) offers free, instant transactions between European banks. They’re pull based; a user communicates their banking information to a business, which debits the user’s account, rather than the business communicating their banking information to the user in order to send them money. I think this is something of a simplification since SEPA encompasses multiple types of payment. While…

I don’t understand why SEPA direct debit was started a few years ago. Push based methods were working great for decades, and SEPA had unified national payment methods to a european level. There were national pull based methods with built in fraud guard rails, and automatic recurring payments for e.g. monthly subscriptions.

Then came direct debit, where giving out your IBAN now somehow became a fraud risk. Meanwhile, most companies still publish their IBAN on their websites. Customers hate giving away control over their account and seeing random money transfers from mysterious companies. Banks hate all the random middleman grabbing money out of accounts. We need these new middleman for some reason.

I have no idea why they implemented SDD like this. It reeks as if someone decided to force the US payment system on top of SEPA, even if the legal framework for it is missing, there is a huge cultural impedance mismatch, and the credit card based system is inferior in almost every way to the existing debet cards. Things that were working just fine in the 1980’s are now losing consumer trust because of SDD. All of this was a very predictable idiotic clusterfuck. Why?

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method (2021)

#156

Post by mschuster91 »

laurencerowe wrote: post #142
mschuster91 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's completely normal and safe in Europe to share your bank account number (IBAN) with others so that they can send you money through online banking. This is how I paid my rent (you can setup a recurring payment, kinda like bill pay but instant and without the risk of a physical check potentially being delayed in the mail); settled up with friends for shared expenses; and got paid for freelance consulting (I'd put…

> Just because everyone does it this doesn't mean it's safe to do. If some trolls manage to get hold of your IBAN and the account isn't protected from direct debit, you will get fucked by idiots ordering pizza and dildos. I don't know anyone who this has ever happened to. Only vetted companies are allowed to perform Direct Debits, e.g. utilities who know your physical address. In the UK (still a member of SEPA even p…

> Only vetted companies are allowed to perform Direct Debits, e.g. utilities who know your physical address.

The scenario is not fraud, that is hard(er) to pull off due to vetting, but trolling someone with fake online shop orders.

> In the UK (still a member of SEPA even post Brexit) the Direct Debit Guarantee [1] makes it easy to reverse any errant Direct Debits through your bank.

It's the same here in Germany, but you're still stuck with unwinding all of the bullshit.

> The pizza or dildo company likely won't accept Direct Debits and will require a debit or credit card for the transaction instead.

Here in Germany, paying with SEPA DD is the norm.

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method (2021)

#157

Post by Symbiote »

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.

As an example, I bought a ticket using a British credit card to a music festival. The festival went bankrupt so never happened.

I claimed the cost of the ticket back from the credit card company. Recovering money from the bankrupt festival is then their problem.

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method (2021)

#158

Post by anaganisk »

kelnos wrote: post #67
anaganisk wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's funny how so many non-Americans call our payments system "backwards", but I generally prefer it to bank-transfer-based payments: 1. When I pay with a credit card, I haven't actually spent any money. That money is still in my bank account, and I have the chance to dispute the transaction if it's fraudulent, without putting my own money on the line first. I've heard a few horror stories where a merchant/service ha…

I guess you assumed I'm from India, so I have no idea about US but, I'm living in the US for the past 2 years. And having lived in both places US payment systems are really backward.

Zelle is trying to solve it, but not widely accepted and is not even at scale what India has done with UPI. Direct Bank transfers take seconds not days.

Also we get OTP verification for every transaction, it's mandatory. People can't just randomly charge someone just because they know their A/C and routing. We do have credit cards too, but for it, one needs a good standing too, it's a privilege not a feature.

And Debt is bad for many people, who can't manage it.

And finally we don't have to depend on some 3rd party company(I've read enough PayPal, cash app horror stories). We have a default system between banks that just works, to make transactions instantly,secured and authorized.

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method (2021)

#159

Post by Denvercoder9 »

hyperman1 wrote: post #155
laurencerowe wrote: post #42

> The Single Europe Payment Area (SEPA) offers free, instant transactions between European banks. They’re pull based; a user communicates their banking information to a business, which debits the user’s account, rather than the business communicating their banking information to the user in order to send them money. I think this is something of a simplification since SEPA encompasses multiple types of payment. While…

I don’t understand why SEPA direct debit was started a few years ago. Push based methods were working great for decades, and SEPA had unified national payment methods to a european level. There were national pull based methods with built in fraud guard rails, and automatic recurring payments for e.g. monthly subscriptions. Then came direct debit, where giving out your IBAN now somehow became a fraud risk. Meanwhile,…

Having a single European-wide integrated pull-based payment method is great for cross-border commerce. When I went studying abroad, I just gave the rental agency my IBAN, and they pulled the rent from my account the same way my local landlord did. I can sign up for services from any company in the EU and have recurring payments just like I would for local companies. That's not as easy if there's 27 national methods.

Furthermore, I don't think SDD is a big fraud risk. To be able to make direct debits, you need a contract with a bank, and, at least in my experience, they're quite thorough about that: you need to have a legal entity, banking history and show government identification; and even then the amount you can direct debit is limited to just a little more than your usual turnover. If a fraudulent debit happens anyway, you can one-click, no-questions-asked reverse them for up to eight weeks. After that, you can report it as an unauthorized transaction for up to 13 months and the bank will reverse it unless the creditor can show a signed mandate.

I don't think I've ever heard of anyone having had a direct debit from an unknown party. At least over here in the Netherlands, all banks also support requiring pre-authorization for direct debits nowadays, eliminating the risk completely.

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method (2021)

#160

Post by Symbiote »

pepa65 wrote: post #151
refurb wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why on earth would I use my money (and the risk of fraud) when I could use the banks money, interest free for a month? And if I have a dispute with a business, I can have the credit card company reverse the charge for me? If it's debit, that money is gone. I would never use debit if I could use a credit card. The US system is far superior for consumers.

Only if you faithfully clear your debts every month. Are there any account types that do this automatically?? (Unlikely, I would think...)

Britain has/had a credit card culture in some ways similar to the USA, and the direct debit system explained in the article is usually used to pay the balance in full every month.

I think that's the same for credit cards in most of Europe. (They exist even if they aren't popular.)

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