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Comment by ggm | Hacker News Reader

The only possible downside that I can think of is that I'd have to deal with a little extra hassle if I wanted a cashier's check.

Almost everything wrong with consumer banking in america is contained, or stems from the ability to refer to cheque as a neccessary and normal thing in modern day finance.

I tore up my last cheque book ten years ago, I have had to resort to Western Union three times now (once a year) to send money to Her Majesties Customs and Excise for my UK pension topup, its the only thing I still do that way, and if the UK stopped using a closed-loop domestic clearing house and opened up SWIFT I'd do this via the IBAN immediately.

Cheques are cool. They're also horrendously stone age and the "yes but..." are the collected history of insanity that is american banking.

Jimmy Stewart, holding the fort at the friendly credit union on christmas day...

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Check != Cashier's check

The former is what you're describing. The latter is where the bank takes the funds from you then itself guarantees the piece of paper. Much more like an arbitrarily denominated bit of cash often used in large transactions in the States when (1) a seller doesn't trust the buyer too much or (2) the seller wants the funds to clear more quickly.

Also, regular checks are great. There's something about having to physically take time to spend money via a goofy little ritual that makes it easier to save the stuff.

Cashier's cheques are needed in the US because of fundamental distrust between financial institutions. Funds clearing more quickly... Because the process is locked to physical paper moments and could be milliseconds but no because cheques.

If there is so much distrust between buyer and seller,why hasnt western financial civilization in europe tanked by now?

I get cashier cheques aren't personal cheques but the underlying logic of why they exist is because of legacy reasons which are inefficient and reinforce bad behaviours.

When I bought my apartment in Spain, I had to get a Cashier's check for both the deposit and the final purchase.

There's apparently still some utility in them in parts of Europe. When I challenged it (I had to pay 80 EUR for the check!) I was told that a bank transfer could be reversed or canceled, and that Cashier's checks prevent that from happening.

I don't see this situation changing until the banks get together with the central bank and create a unified escrow system to replace Cashier's checks.

As of now, they don't see the benefits of changing to a new system outweighing the costs.

I'm not originally from America either so cheques do seem super ancient to me. That said, it's more convenient to pay my housekeeper and lawn guy with cheques instead of regular trips to the ATM. They're not venmo or google/apple pay kind of people either.

Why not wire transfer? Here bank transfers are very cheap (free for most people unless you do a lot) and usually take a few hours at most (at some banks are instant). If someone requests anything else as payment for rent you can be fairly sure they try to evade taxes on it as wire transfer is both the most convenient, cheapest and the safest way to pay.

Wire transfers in the US are expensive for most checking accounts. In the $20-40 range per payment. Also people don't usually carry around their account numbers for receiving payments.

In my bank app both my account number used for national transfers and IBAN used for international is shown under account details with a copy button.

Then again, we also have an app (Swish) similar to venmo allowing you to instantly for free send money to a phone number.

> * Wire transfers in the US are expensive for most checking accounts*

They’re free to and from Fidelity accounts. I’d guess the same for Schwab accounts.

Are you talking wire transfers or ACH payments? ACH is typically a much slower method of transferring money (1-5 business days) though it is generally free to do so. ACH also carries all of the risks associated with checks save the risk of losing a piece of paper before you can deposit it.

Wire transfers can happen almost immediately but typically cost $20-40 for one, or sometimes both, parties involved.

> Are you talking wire transfers or ACH payments?

Wire transfers [1]. (For most business accounts, wire transfers are also free.)

[1] https://www.fidelity.com/cash-management/bank-wires

Most banks allow you to transfer between accounts at the same bank for free, and faster than ACH transfers because they can settle it quickly when its internal.

Fair enough, but venmo/google/apple pay is even more convenient than wire transfers and they're not into those either. Checks/Cheques are just a cultural norm in America.

>I tore up my last cheque book ten years ago

I never had a cheque book, but I have a faint memory of my parents using cheques back in the 1970s :-)

I got a cheque a few weeks back from HMRC and it was the first one I'd personally seen in over 10 years - it seemed like something from a different age.

A girlfriend got her IRS refund in the 1970s on a cheque printed into a hollerith card!

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