SEPA transfers in Germany are both free and instant too. Not saying it's not a slow and manually run industry in general, but I have nothing to complain about transactions.
In Brazil for same bank transfers I'd get an SMS in my phone at the same time as the sender got the confirmation that the transfer went through on their phone. Transfers between banks would typically clear in 2 hours or less. With cash withdrawals I got an SMS in my phone before the ATM was finished counting the notes.
Here in Germany I have to reverse engineer what the entries on my transaction history were from vague hints in the business name, because they take days to show up in my account. Cash withdrawals from an ATM run by my own bank sometimes take 5 days to show up in my transaction history. I regularly do SEPA transfers to Portugal and it arrives at the end of the next business day, at the earliest. SEPA transfers in Germany sometimes clear same day, after several hours, but usually some point in the next day.
This is not “instant”, but 1 hour is much better than 1 day.
List of banks with SEPA ICT: https://www.europeanpaymentscouncil.eu/sites/default/files/p...
My bank charges 0.50€ per ICT transfer.
My impression is that banking is massively overpriced in Germany. I understand it's not trivial and "I can build that on a weekend", but I don't see the need to spend ~10 euros on the average checking account that has two dozens actions a month. The pricing is also extremely stable despite all the technological changes, which seems to suggest that as well - if you go by prices, running it all completely digital is as expensive as having somebody manually read a paper slip, punch in the numbers, stamp the paper and file it away.
That's not really true. While there is a huge number of banks, most of them are either co-op banks (Raiffeisen- and Volksbanken) or Sparkassen, and while they are all separate legal entities, all the banks from either of those groups run on their respective common infrastructure (Ficudia & GAD IT and Finanz Informatik).
Funny that in countries like Chile transfers are free and instant.
So ... if this is instant, it leaves a lot to be desired still. It's not as fast as sending someone cash over a messaging app, say. And it doesn't work well with international networks, and there are expensive fees for cancelling a transaction, and banks can waive the fees, but if you're on a free plan chances are you either don't have auto deposit, or you'll have to pay for the Interac E-Transfer fee. They commonly set it at $1-1.50 per send, when internally, transferring money between banks (such as with Canadian EFT) is barely a penny. Of course, an EFT transfer generally takes 2 days, but I can't imagine it has to take that long, you'd just have to do inter-bank settlement more frequently.