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> Giro transfers clear within minutes. This is the day-to-day mechanism that EU citizens use to pay their bills.

Not true at all. This is just starting to get implemented in the EU. Until now transfers took usually a full banking day, thus nothing happened on the weekend and holidays. Last year over easter I had a transfer between two German banks take 7 days because of that.

And international transfers are still a nightmare.

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It depends entirely on your Banks peering agreement.

It generally clears within minutes if you're transferring between participating Banks. If not, the maximum amount of time they're permitted to take is exactly one business day after they've accepted your order. This acceptance is not necessarily the time you've entered the details on their website. It is often, but there are some outliers that only accept them at a specific time each day. (But still let you schedule them at all times.)

FWIW I've never seen a SEPA transfer take 'minutes'. Usually it takes around one business day.

Wow. In Argentina a transfer usually takes less than a minute. Sometimes my girlfriend texts me from the bank when she needs money, I make a transfer and in 2 minutes she has the cash in her hand.

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