Comment by arcticbull | Hacker News Reader

Comment by arcticbull | Hacker News Reader

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Crypto path:

EFT transfer to an exchange, purchase crypto (1% fee), withdraw to a different exchange ($1 fee), sell crypto (1% fee), SEPA transfer to recipient.

Classic path:

TransferWise handles everything (0.85% or less). Or:

EFT transfer to Interactive Brokers, FOREX exchange ($20 per million), withdraw via SEPA to Croatian account. They allow you to link both AU and Croatian accounts. Or:

Open an HSBC account in both places and use the online instant account-to-account global transfer tool (rates vary, ~2%) and send a SEPA payment. Or:

Wire money (pricey). Or:

With a brokerage account and an established business you can instantly make your payment through margin (3.9% per annum). IB will allow you to borrow Hrvatska kruna and withdraw instantly via SEPA payment. Then you can transfer in Australian dollars over EFT at your leisure.

Seriously, this is a solved problem and the crypto path is not faster, it's not safer, it's not cheaper, it's not easier.

> TransferWise handles everything (0.85% or less).

TransferWise doesn't do settlement. You still have to pay a merchant with a card who then needs to settle. No actual money is being settled through TransferWise.

> EFT transfer to Interactive Brokers, FOREX exchange ($20 per million), withdraw via SEPA to Croatian account. They allow you to link both AU and Croatian accounts.

EFT transfer to IB isn't instant. SEPA requires you to be using Euro. SEPA does handle settlement, but you still need to do settlement with both the EFT transfer as well as within your IB account. IB does have programs to allow early withdrawal before your account is settled if you quality, but again that isn't settlement.

> Open an HSBC account in both places and use the online instant account-to-account global transfer tool (rates vary, ~2%) and send a SEPA payment.

Again, SEPA requires you to be using Euro. Additionally, you would need to do settlement on the initial transfer to HSBC.

> Wire money (pricey).

The company you're using to wire money needs to handle cross border remittance and settlement, so how do they do it?

Just to reiterate... you've done a fine job explaining how a consumer can send money across the globe. You're not wrong to say that as a consumer there are perfectly acceptable solutions that can accomplish what they need. What you've completely failed to do is explain how to accomplish "cross border remittance and settlement" using Fiat in a way that is fast, doesn't require vostro account (i.e. illiquid reserves), and is scalable with the number of possible banks you'd need to transfer money to/from.

Ah I guess I misunderstood your question. My understanding is that settlement can be accomplished the way that TransferWise bootstrapped. They matched up two pairs of domestic transfers, where if I wanted to send money to Canada, they waited until someone wanted to send money to the US, then we'd each domestically transfer money to eachothers recipients. Minimal reserves, and everything happened domestically.

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