I was pretty shocked at just how far behind the American banking system was when I lived overseas for a bit. I wrote about it here:
https://battlepenguin.com/tech/the-american-banking-system-i...
While limits might not be much different from other banks, at the very least it's not Wells Fucking Fargo.
Seriously, do some research. I'd never use those fools.
When I lived in Australia, which I believe has a very modern banking system, I couldn't instantly send more than $5k a day. The one time I needed to send more money, I was fine with going into a branch.
Similarly in the NL if I want to send someone money to anyone in the EuroZone I open my bank app type in their IBAN type in the amount of money and hit send. Done.
Back in 2017 when I lived in the US this just wasn't possible. If I wanted to send money to someone I had to use Paypal, TransferWise (or similar), Venmo, etc. Some banks had direct access to ACH but far from all, then if they do support it it takes two days to arrive. Some banks allowed easy instant payments between accounts within the same bank. Much of my family purposefully keep an account with a small west coast credit union to facilitate moving money amongst ourselves.
Maybe things have gotten massively better in the US in the last 3+ years, but it was light years behind the UK and NL. In terms of speed, ease of use, and adoption.
For companies there are present lists so I don't need to know most company details to send say gas bill payments.
It's mostly functional, the problem is that it doesn't work for anything more than trivial amounts, for various reasons, so the choices are either to wait 2 days, or physically walk to a bank location, authenticate, get them to give you a magical piece of paper, and then walk to the other location. (And then sometimes you still have to wait a few days more if it's not something you normally do "while the check clears".)
It's a byzantine system, but at least it doesn't (as a customer - it still does in places on the backend) involve me having to find a fax machine to send a fax, or send a picture of a check through a sketchy "free" online service.
Apple / Google Pay? this isn’t as complicated as you’re trying to make it out to be. get a number, find out if they’re google or apple, use the appropriate app. This has been possible for years now.
I guess my point is: in Europe sending money from one person to another is easy and easily done with no third parties. All I need to know is the other person's account info, access to my own account either by app or website, and done. Almost instant transfers between people.
In the US a third party is required. Be that Paypal, Apple/Google Pay (I didn't know they had launched this as a thing for person-to-person), square, facebook, etc. Not only does it require a third party it requires two people to be using the same third party.
My mother-in-law is fairly technophobic. She doesn't do online banking, doesn't use apps, etc etc. Yet despite that I can still send her money without an issue, because the infrastructure is basically universal. Unless they are doing something very strange anyone who has an account can receive money. Plumber comes over to fix a pipe, send him some money digitally, buying a car, send some money, etc etc.
As for sending money via routing and account number: I’ve received conflicting information from different banks on how acceptable this is. The university I went to allowed it as a way to pay tuition (you could give them your account number and they would debit you), but every bank that I’ve privately banked with has told me that I need to own or be responsible for both accounts in order to do a “direct” (i.e. non-cheque) transfer. But I don’t know whether that’s just a policy thing among financial institutions.
Which is just as well! In that circumstance, there would be nothing structurally to stop anyone who knows your routing and account number from performing ACH debits against your account. That's actually an already extant attack vector - and the reason why I never pay bills via ACH; I don't trust most payment processors to be very secure and fraudulent payment card transactions are easier to claw back - but without the barrier to entry inherent in the attacker having to subvert or convince some third party to act on their behalf, I think it'd be a much more common occurrence.
Is that possible in any country? I've never heard of a banking system where ordinary people directly submit a transaction to the national clearing house. They always tell their bank to send their funds, right?
That being so, if I'm honest I'm not really sure where the prior commenter's objection originates. Maybe they know about some directly accessible clearinghouse that I don't? I'd be surprised for several reasons to learn such a thing exists, but I've been surprised plenty of times before.
Because America doesn’t have the equivalent of a “receive only” code, every service has to build that functionality themselves “on top of” ACH, and prevent direct access to ACH debit and credit functionality.
That being said, for $10/month any business can get direct access to ACH including debits and credits, and then whatever gateway you use is supposed to do some level of fraud detection against your transactions.
In the article author's defense, he did pretty much disclaim any detailed or experiential knowledge right up front. That said, while my own relevant experience is now many years past and was in any case mostly refracted through the payment card industry, I didn't spot any obvious howlers.