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Comment by treydey | Hacker News Reader

What most people in this thread are talking about is retail banking. Retail banking in the US lags far behind the EU in terms in technology and security. However, retail banking is only accounts for about 25% of total profits when compared to commercial and investment banking. This is where US banks have consistently beaten the competition. Especially since Brexit which has destabilized London as the financial hub of Europe

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america's global presence in commerce is the backbone of american finance's global domination. nearly every country in world has a mcdonalds, starbucks, microsoft, ford and gm and the hundreds of thousands of enterprises ranging from family businesses to faceless behemoths and they all need FX and cash management and funding and commodity hedging and capital raising and securitization and nearly everything else.

which other country extends its commercial presence like this? the germans and the european banks (because german companies fund in euros) come to mind - coba, bnp, credit ag - but (1) german industry is not quite as big as the american industry (2) even the american supermarket-style banks like citi compete aggressively in this space.

The Big Bang when the city was deregulated I think you mean

This pretty bold statement what is this based on ? As someone who just moved from US to Ireland I def. not getting that impression. I also highly doubt there are banks in EU that can match say Chase on security side.

You´ll be finding out I suspect.

No idea how it is in Ireland, but in most of the EU, digital transfer between banks and countries is completely seamless. I can transfer money to family members accounts in different banks in the same country in a couple of minutes, and to another country in a day or two. I haven´t used a physical cheque since I moved back from the US.

The transfers thing yes (although it's cultural to an extent). The Clearing House's Real Time Payments network has launched in Jan. but people are not that used to products using it. On security side Chase's security spend dwarfs even largest security firms. If I remember correctly they spend on the order of 4 billion per year on security which among other things allows them to be running world class security team.

Expensive security and good security are two entirely different, often uncorrelated, things.

In a market where competent candidates start at 300K+ you can't hire a good team unless you a) have resource b)are actually willing to pay for talent. Chase actually has a very competent team. I have doubts there are many (any?) EU banks who's team is on par with Chase.

Yes, well, so the way it is in banking if you don´t have a competent security team, you won´t be in business for very long. And banks in general, everywhere and anywhere, have been in the business of security for a very long time indeed.

I´m sure American banks have very competent teams. So do the Europeans. Behind the scenes they all also tend to collaborate quite a lot in this area at least.

" if you don´t have a competent security team, you won´t be in business for very long" oh that what logic would have you believe and yet it very far from reality.

I should state that I'm only comparing the largest banks in terms of security. I have bank accounts both in the UK and the US. 2FA has only been recently (3-4 years?) introduced in the US and chip and pin has been in the EU for years now.

It's being more than that but regardless of how long it has being that way does not affect current state of things. Security is among other things a function of the SOC and the level of people running it.

Traditional banks in Ireland are pretty bad by European standards.

I'm with Ulster Bank ROI (which is actually a subsidiary of Royal Bank of Scotland) and have had a fair share of minor issues with them. Their app also sucks big time.

They've had a major issue 6 months ago where a fair amount of folks were locked out of their accounts (or couldn't access the money, same same ultimately).

Friends at AIB have also had issues, like discrepancy between your online statement and the paper one, or getting their account straight up closed out of the blue.

I can't remember any specific with BOI but they also suck.

If you're in Ireland for long enough, do yourself a favour, get a Revolut / N26 account for your day to day, it's pretty smooth.

Thnx I've opted for Revolut looks pretty slick

Oh man - you have no idea what you are talking about. Here get educated: https://twitter.com/antoniogm/status/1159537216214798337

I am curious what evidence do you have to even say the things about retail banking you mentioned here? Just out and out confirmation bias at play here. And the end result is that so many folks here at hacker news were mis-educated because of you.

That guy is just making shit up. EU banks don't have anti-fraud filters on their cards? Bullcrap.

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