Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
Bank transfers as a payment method
221–230 of 335 posts
Re: Bank transfers as a payment method
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
//US Fed plays with interest rates// That's what central banks are for. That's how they control inflation or make the wheels of economy moving by printing more money. That's literally the reason for their existence, controlling money supply in an economy.
and by playing recklessly with interest rates, they inflate assets like stocks and real estate while destroy savings. While making these decisions they decide winners and losers and then privately trade stocks to get rich using insider information.
Re: Bank transfers as a payment method
#223The 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…
Re: Bank transfers as a payment method
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
> 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. Landlords benefit from it because it makes it harder for your to lower your rent in case there are issues with the place that warrant it. If they can withdraw the ren…
You could sign a contract with your landlord, then revoke the so called "SEPA mandate" afterwards and you can forcibly switch to "manual payment" each month, since the SEPA mandate is not necessarily required or a "legally-necessary intrinsic component of the contract" (check for example: https://deutschesmietrecht.de/mietvertrag/662-mietzahlung-ei... )
Tough, depends on which type of relation you want to have to your landlord ;-)
Re: Bank transfers as a payment method
#225I like how truelayer operates. Takes me to my banking app where I authorise the payment using my bank auth. No middlemen "value-adds" -X%, no keying in card details, no crappy browser autofill and CVV. Admittedly this only seems to work via mobile at the moment and haven't seen it on the web yet. The Amazon VISA announcement shows that maybe card providers and their payment service providers are next on the disrupt l…
They probably don't get as much money as CC payments though. Revolut topups / Nectar / Chip are now all using TrueLayer.
On the cons side, it doesn't work so well on all devices (I had problems going from app -> browser -> app on older devices, probably because of RAM limits).
Ideally, we could just have a free open-source wallet application that connects to all the different banks via Open Bank API (same as TrueLayer) and then just have a special walletOS://revolut/topup/250/gbp link in the app which opens up your wallet and allow you to send an instant bank transfer.
Zero fees, zero middlemen.
I've been toying with the idea of building it but it's not immediate to monetise, so I'll do it once I'm rich and bored and keep selling simpler services to business for now.
You could potentially upsell a saving / personal analytics premium service once you have enough adoption or resell transaction data (even if the latter won't probably be a very popular model, given modern concerns with muh privacy)
The main problem it would solve for me is that I have something like 8 different banking apps on my phone which I hate with a passion and I hate Credit/Debit Cards: sharing your single secret everytime you're paying for something is just plain retarded plus we're just enriching Visa and Mastercards, which produce zero innovation in FinTech.
Re: Bank transfers as a payment method
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
and by playing recklessly with interest rates, they inflate assets like stocks and real estate while destroy savings. While making these decisions they decide winners and losers and then privately trade stocks to get rich using insider information.
But aren't most Americans' biggest asset their house, aka real estate? And their savings is their 401(k), aka the stock market?
Re: Bank transfers as a payment method
#227Earlier 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…
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 collector…
In general, "double scheme cards" (MC + Maestro on one card) should offer you the option to choose, while at the POS, which scheme should be used; the thing is, the merchant is not required to offer you this question, and there is a "default scheme" on such cards. This means, in cases the merchant does not ask you, the default scheme is chosen, which is usually the one that brings in more fees for the bank/PSP.
And: Depending on the contract between you and your bank, it maybe that you couldn't revoke the "lastschrift", yes.
Re: Bank transfers as a payment method
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 collector…
When using the girocard there's two ways the retailer can take the amount. Either instantly, or using Lastschrift. The latter is cheaper, but the retailer doesn't have the guarantee that your account actually has sufficient balance to pay. If I remember correctly, the latter method requires you to sign the receipt.
Re: Bank transfers as a payment method
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm in the lucky situation that locally I can transfer instantaneously or nearly so across all of Europe and internationally I use bitcoin for recipients in places where banking fees are too high or the transfers too slow. It's a good combination.
Why not a stablecoin with lower fees?
Re: Bank transfers as a payment method
#230The 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 think it's less "factually incorrect" and more "nuanced and incomplete". As a European that moved between countries, I was very surprised when I learned that SEPA allows a "pull" mechanism even exists. I lived 30 years in Latvia without knowing this is a feature in SEPA because every single payment is a "push" mechanism. I'm not sure if banks can turn this feature off, or if it just culturally never gained traction…
- PUSH: - SCT Standard - SCT Instant
- PULL: - SDD Core - SDD B2B
As a bank, you are not forced to support all of them; also, it depends on the local consumer behaviour: in some countries, pull mechanisms are not that widely accepted
DISCLAIMER: Lead Payment Engineer at an European Challenger Bank, i'm implementing that stuff in the backend, i'm mainly talking to our central bank.