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Bank transfers as a payment method

bam.kalzumeus.com

271–280 of 335 posts

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method

#271
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…

And with 2.0 banks like Monzo, the account holder gets notified of the Direct Debit setup, how much is likely to be debited, and can easily cancel it from the app. That reduces the risk of fraud quite a lot. In exchange, it saves a lot of time both for the customer and utility provider as the risks of mistakes are reduced considerably. Invoices get paid on time.

With HSBC it’s the same, with the added security of a TUN code that is generated with a physical token for bank transfers.

That said canceling a direct debit on your end even if it’s fraudulent isn’t something you should do as it can wreck your credit score in the UK since you’ll be in debt and depending on the account it can show up as a missed payment immediately even before it going to debt collector/judgement.

If there is a fraudulent transaction you have to contact the bank and file a claim.

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method

#272

Fun Fact: UPI also allows certain other interesting kinds of transactions based on "special VPAs". These include: - IFSC code and account number combination, resolved directly by NPCI, is represented as account-no@ifsc-code.ifsc.npci (e.g. 12345@HDFC0000001.ifsc.npci) - RuPay card number, resolved directly by NPCI, is represented as card-no@rupay.npci (e.g. 1234123412341234@rupay.npci) The following were proposed, bu…

> Mobile number, resolved directly by NPCI using proposed mobile to account mapper, is represented as mobile-no@mobile.npci (e.g. 9800011111@mobile.npci). Instead of this, many PSPs (PhonePe/BHIM most notably) ended up using mobilenumber@psp by default because of the usability benefit, and this "centralized mobile mapper" was never built afaik.

There’s been a recent development on this front: interoperable mobile number payments are coming to UPI in the next few months. The special VPA format for it is mobile-no@mapper.npci.

Ref: https://www.npci.org.in/PDF/npci/upi/circular/2021/NPCI-UPI-...

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method

#273

I 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…

I like TrueLayer as well, albeit it's not free for the provider. TrueLayer is the middleman. 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 wa…

I don't think that sounds like a bad idea at all. The payments market is massive and there is plenty of pie to go around.

Smaller transaction size sites and apps that struggle with payment fees might interested in that as TrueLayer seem to focus on major players.

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method

#274
post #218

> I expect we’ll see bank transfers as a more prominent part of the payment mix in much of the world. Interesting read. I have multiple clients in Europe who use my webshop system with simple bank transfers as the only payment method. It's so easy. No setting up shit like iDeal or Stripe or anything like that, no fees, just paying from one bank to the other. It comes so close to paying with cash. It's not instant so…

> It's so easy. No setting up shit like iDeal or Stripe.. While true, the friction with iDeal or Stripe is a lot lower than with bank-transfers. I've helped set up such payment systems (backends): the rate of non-paying (send reminders, etc) is far higher with bank-transfers than with iDeal. So much, that for many freelancers who send just a few dozens of invoices per year, it pays off (pun intended) to include an iD…

Most banking apps support SEPA QR codes as well, specifying a receiver, amount, and subject line. Which makes payment super easy.

If I’m sharing a bill with friends, I’ll just generate the QR codes, the friends scan them, click pay, verify with biometrics, and are done.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPC_QR_code

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method

#275
post #154

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.

I think having a dualistic economy plays a big role in this.

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method

#276

When discussing Europe, you can't leave out the rise of mobile payments that work similar to India's UPI. For instance, in Sweden, "Swish"[0] has quickly taken over the market for casual payments, with free, instant, irreversible bank transfers between individuals using only the recipients phone number (or a QR code). They are a bunch of these systems, but currently they are all fractured into national systems, altho…

Yes. In Switzerland it's Twint. It's easy to use, instant and free for the user. It started out as an easy way to move small amounts of money around among family and friends without the hassle of doing a bank transfer. Now large grocery stores and online shops support it too. I don't see it overtaking the whole payment market because of the exclusivity to Switzerland. It'd be great if something like Twint would exist…

> free for the user

Overall it's not free, the receiving party will still pay the fee (so, probably not that different from Debit/Credit Cards for merchants), and shops might increase the price preemptively to account for that.

See this drama for more: https://www.twint.ch/en/press/digitec-galaxus-spreading-fals...

PS: However, it's probably free for user2user payments, using phone no as identifiers. And it's useful to settle lunch debts among friends. I guess they (banks) want users to install twint apps for that, make it then easy to pay at businesses.

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method

#277

+1 for UPI. However, UPI is not "open" in the true sense (you can't have an app running on linux or AOSP for instance). It's locked to certain apps, which apparently need license from GOI. The whole Indian banking system is also too reliant on SMS + TOTP. That UPI locks people to US proprietary systems, while GOI also has been making noises on tech monopolies, is apparently an irony not apparent the babucracy.

What “US proprietary systems” does UPI lock people into, exactly?

The number of available UPI apps today exceeds 100. Some of the big ones are created by US companies, sure, but many are created by Indian/non-US-owned companies. There is no lock-in though.

Also, UPI is not on Windows/MacOS either, so it’s not correct to infer that it’s “not open” simply because it doesn’t run on Linux. It was designed from the start to be a mobile payment system, and there are good reasons for that (more on this below).

The reason it doesn’t work on AOSP is, I presume, due to security concerns related to rooting (similar to why it doesn’t work on older known-insecure versions of Android/iOS). The security/fraud prevention mechanisms rely on proving that your device has a SIM card with the phone number linked to your bank account - and the same phone number is tied to your identity via Aadhaar. These guarantees are presumably much harder/costlier to ensure on such devices.

EDIT to add: There is also an economic angle here: the above description of reliable, low-cost KYC in UPI also reduces the cost of operating the network (both directly by simplifying KYC, and indirectly by making fraud harder).

Source: I work on a UPI app (although I am by no means a security expert).

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method

#278
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…

In The Netherlands, over 90% of all domestic payments initiated by “regular people” are SEPA Instant Payments, meaning booked on the other persons account no matter their bank within 5 seconds.

They’re free to send and receive.

Source: I worked on implementing Instant Payments at the biggest Dutch bank.

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method

#279
post #179

One of the most surprising things about moving to Eastern Europe (being born and raised in Canada and worked in the US) was how much better the payment systems are, from a consumer's perspective. Instant P2P bank-to-bank transfers, confirmed with a 2FA notification on my smartphone, are the default way to pay for everything from my monthly rent to clothing stores (which don't have a credit card terminal) to random ec…

Counterpoint. I use Interac e-Transfer all the time. Zero problems. No spam. No fraud. Works fast. There is auto-deposit now so it's even more frictionless than before and it's sped up to essentially instant on regular purchases. And yes, I pay my rent with e-Transfer.

Re: Bank transfers as a payment method

#280
post #279
post #179

One of the most surprising things about moving to Eastern Europe (being born and raised in Canada and worked in the US) was how much better the payment systems are, from a consumer's perspective. Instant P2P bank-to-bank transfers, confirmed with a 2FA notification on my smartphone, are the default way to pay for everything from my monthly rent to clothing stores (which don't have a credit card terminal) to random ec…

Counterpoint. I use Interac e-Transfer all the time. Zero problems. No spam. No fraud. Works fast. There is auto-deposit now so it's even more frictionless than before and it's sped up to essentially instant on regular purchases. And yes, I pay my rent with e-Transfer.

Agreed and it's free across all banks, and some have even raised daily transfer limits to $7000 or more. It's also one of the easiest and fastest no-fee methods to transfer money into crypto exchanges/platforms in Canada.
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