Is the eventual end-game that I can send money from my account at Bank A, to a friend's account at Bank B to split a check at dinner without using a third party like Venmo?
Netflix is part of the RFP Work Group. So presumably they are interested in offering consumers the ability to pay for Netflix using FedNow instead of a credit card. Instead of Netflix paying ~$0.50 in credit card processing fees per U.S. subscription they'll probably be able to find a bank willing to charge them < $0.25. It also gives consumers more control as they have to authorize each charge.
I guess that includes some very small values, but the upper bound seems ridiculously high.
I do wonder how stuff like this will shake out. I will use a credit card, always, with any vendor that doesn't pass along credit card fees to the customer in some way. (Why would I choose otherwise? The credit card gives me rewards, and better fraud protection.)
But more and more, I see companies charging "convenience fees" for credit card usage or offering "discounts" for cash/debit. Hell, T-Mobile just started requiring you not use a credit card to get their $5/mo autopay discount.
So this is all cool (and perhaps would make it easier for people who don't have a credit card to pay for Netflix), but I don't see why I'd use anything but a credit card to pay for my Netflix subscription, unless they offer discounts for using FedNow. Which... they probably won't?
Rewards on top are an added bonus.
The argument that you save interest on savings account doesn’t make any sense at all because I count my credit cards towards my emergency buffer. If I maxed out the credit card I would absolutely make sure to keep more money in my savings account.
I get that it’s different for people living paycheck to paycheck. But arguing that credit is a solution for the poor is a slippery slope. We should solve those problems other ways.
You come out ahead because the card issuers expect to make money from you because you'll stay with them a long time so offer substantial sign up bonuses (I don't) and that you'll pay interest (I don't). There are generally annual fees, but if you ask they'll often waive them (if you spend enough, again not accessible if you're living pay to pay).
It's ~effortless (bills paid automatically in full from a mortgage offset account) and saves money even without rewards and other perks (0% loans via interest free "balance transfers").
https://www.cardrates.com/advice/secured-cards-with-rewards/
I want banks and stripe and gateways and shopify and visa/mc to weed out bad actors fast.
and if some small shop starts to transact a lot, let them manage their risk, don't require consumer side credit for this.
there's already a ton of data, endless kyc/aml paperwork put on consumers and banks/gateways they should figure it out, and if someone still insists on paying hundreds of thousands on totally-free-bitcoins.top after the bank, the app, the browser, their neighbor warned them then let them. and let them try a chargeback.
is that not an absurdly slippery slope?
what if rather than anyone having to take advantage of anything, things just worked better, and everyone agreed that such things matter?
In lieu of that, how would you envision any society arriving at such an end state?
But we don't, and never will again, for very complicated reasons.
The United States didn’t even “trust” Black folks enough to allow them to drink from the same water fountain, live in the same neighborhood, go to the same school or be part of the financial system as late as the 60s.
https://www.fdic.gov/analysis/household-survey/index.html
I’m not saying we shouldn’t do anything for that 4.5%.
But almost anyone who has a bank account should at least be able to get a secured credit card
Yes, it is; its 15 million people in the US, more people than any state outside of the top 4.
Wow. Absolutely stunning.
I don’t have much to say other than “yes it is”
The failure in your logic is that different credit cards do have different fees and that some form of consumer protection should apply to debit cards as well
Don’t take advantage of “free delivery” because you buy in store? You’re paying for it anyways.
Don’t care about the ability to return for full refund because you changed your mind? You’re paying for it anyways.
Don’t care about the ability to link your washer to your Wi-Fi and use an app to see if your laundry is done? You’re paying for it anyways.
As for fairness, I agree they should go away. Companies with margin can swallow the fee, companies without could be unprofitable and make no sense if they don't pass on the fee. It's a practical reality of the dollars and cents, but it is a private apparatus we opt into so I guess we can't complain that much.
I'm searching using the European/international term for this sort of payment ("direct debit usa") which gives me API documentation from many American payment providers, but nothing about the customer's rights. I assume it's the technical term there, and there's another term used with the public.
(In Britain and the EU this kind of bill-paying agreement has very strong rights for the payer, they can ask their bank to reverse any transaction for a long time without giving a reason. My online banking interfaces have easy buttons to do this, or to block future transfers.)
However there are a lot more knock on effects while you’re waiting for actual cash to be put back into your account than there are when you’re just waiting to get a credit card transaction reversed.
Not only can they potentially drain your checking account. They can also drain any linked Savings account that you have to cover overdrafts.
I only keep $500 in my linked Savings account to cover any of our accounts.
Currently FedNow is simply a push payment system i.e. bank account holder may be able to use FedNow to push money out from their bank account to someone else's bank account.
The limitation here is the bank account holder must know the account number of the recipient. This is a huge limiter in adoption since most people don't want to share their bank account numbers and maintaining a directory of people's bank account numbers is cumbersome to say the least
Yes, the Fed is working on a directory but they have not yet announced the launch date for such a directory, not have they mentioned the index i.e. will it be phone number ? email ? something else ?
Bottom line: FedNow launch: Step in the right direction but still a long way to go
While far less common these days, people gave this information to arbitrary payees (via personal checks) for decades. The idea that it's not to be given to payers, despite it having been given to arbitrary payees, seems misguided. If someone tries to commit fraud with that number, they're probably going to get caught, making it sufficiently unlikely, no?
Crappy usability, no security, abysmal throughput and latency.
Speak for yourself. In my book, paper wins the usability front over apps, because apps suck and have too much personal administrative overhead.
They’re secure: they can only be cashed by the person they’re made out to (unlike cash).
They have theoretically infinite throughput: you can write any amount on a single check.
They have extremely high latency, which is why digital payments are being preferred in many situations. But the remaining situations where checks are used high latency is acceptable or even desirable.
Now I live in the USA and I actually use checks all the time. I get paid via a check, I pay with checks at my local farmstand, I used to pay my rent with a check, my immigration fees were paid with a check etc.
I think every vendor passes along the fees, either in aggregate through pricing, or to the individual as a charge. At least in the latter case it is more transparant and fair to non cc users.
Yes. Visited a T-Mobile store to set that up. Brought in a voided check. Said "Set up an ACH transfer, please." "What's an ACH transfer?" Took about half an hour, two rejects from the T-Mobile payment system with both me and the clerk checking the numbers, and a conversation with Bank of America customer support ("We didn't reject that, we won't see it until the daily batch.") Too many people are going to be paying T-Mobile a $60/year "convenience fee".
(Worse, BofA is apparently still charging for outgoing ACH transfers. And they're not on FedNow.)
I was never a big fan of any of the smaller credit union websites. A lot of stuff still required either going into a branch or hanging out on the phone, though here’s the one place they’re almost all better: you’ll never talk to someone overseas with a local credit union, often tech support will be a real life unix greybeard, who you’ll appreciate talking to once you provide the right shibboleth. But everyone else will most likely be branch employees manning the phones when they’re not busy in the branch. So if you’re ok with needing to talk to people to perform a lot of stuff the bigger banks offer web services for, a CU is definitely a more personal experience.
If you’re ok with no physical presence, discover is a pretty good option, totally free checking, and last time I checked they gave checks for free. I got like 500 almost 10 years ago and haven’t used more than 50, so idk if this is still something they offer but it sure is nice not worrying about inning out of checks or needing to pay for them.
Most bills are paid using this exact system. Credit cards are very rarely used except in-person. Since you have to accept (or tell your bank to always accept certain vendors) debits using this system, there’s never any surprises. You usually have nearly a week to accept a debit.
The ability to resolve this electronically rather than with cash makes it less bad, but still easier and faster to resolve it in store.
Credit cards give you reward points/money so that's not really a positive.
I can't imagine netflix giving up the stickiness of automatic recurring billing to say <2% of the transaction cost.
At least in the EU, a recurring billing over bank transfer is totally a thing...
"Netflix is part of the RFP Work Group. So presumably they are interested in offering consumers the ability to pay for Netflix using FedNow instead of a credit card. Instead of Netflix paying ~$0.50 in credit card processing fees per U.S. subscription they'll probably be able to find a bank willing to charge them < $0.25. It also gives consumers more control as they have to authorize each charge."
NB that last sentense. FedNow does NOT support recurring.
Other than with credit cards, there are no costs for customer kickbacks and chargebacks.
I'm just randomly curious: do you know which Federal Reserve Bank FedNow was developed at?
I had no idea it was the opposite in the UK.
Edit: with the exception of writing physical checks, of course. I use those when the receiver doesn’t accept Venmo or Apple Pay.
The GP was saying they use wire transfers between friends day-to-day which isn’t the case in the US.
My bank's mobile app supports cashing them in via camera. Niche use case, but nice to have it for this attempt at government agency nickle-and-diming the populace.
For payments to friends we use bank apps. Usually the receiver generates a QR code for the payment on their phone, which you scan from your bank app, sign with a pincode, and the payment is executed immediately. If you are not near you can also use their account number to transfer money instantly.
However, I have cashed some cheques - a tax refund cheque and a refund for my remaining balance when I closed a utilities account.
They have the advantage, for the sender, that you can discharge your responsibility to offer a refund by sending a letter, rather than having to interact with the other party. Of course these days you could email them a link to a web form.
How quickly a bank responds in that window depends greatly on the bank. In practice at decent scale, we see banks using every possible hour of that two day window to fail transactions.
An ACH debit made on Friday night technically has until open of business Wednesday to fail.
The larger banks have their own systems that only work within the bank; some smaller banks offer systems that work with any bank that offers the same system.
ACH exists, and I've used it to move money between accounts I own, but there is some friction to set up. I don't know anyone who uses it for C2C payments.
No, there's already Zelle, which is fairly popular now, though not as ubiquitous as instant bank transfers in other countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zelle_(payment_service)
That seems rather excessive. Why on earth are Polish bank accounts so long?
The interface is very weird. Many people can't figure out how to use it. I ended up having to set up new email addresses and assign them to different bank accounts in order to distinguish my accounts.
1) The recipient needs to download the app and sign up. How does the Payor know whether the recipient has Zelle app or not
2) Even with the app, there are only about 50-100 banks that allow Zelle transfers. If someone's bank does not offer Zelle they are directed to enter their Debit Card number using "Push to Card" to receive the funds. While the funds land up in the bank account instantly either way, some Debit Cards have limitations and will not be enabled to receive funds
3) Zelle is essentially a "messaging layer" i.e. the actual settlement happens overnight using ACH rails. As a result the sending as well as the receiving bank are taking some risk in terms of allow the recipient to withdraw money when the underlying settlement hasn't happened. If the settlement fails the receiver's bank will need to claw bank the money from the receiver As a result there are some really low limits on daily transfers i.e. between 1-2K/day for most banks
4) Above all Zelle (like most other payment rails ) is a push system i.e. one can push money using Zelle. One may not pull money using Zelle
> 1) The recipient needs to download the app and sign up. How does the Payor know whether the recipient has Zelle app or not
This is not strictly true. You can still send money to bank accounts directly, but it's not instant.
Zelle is run by Early Warning Services [1], a joint venture between Bank of America, Truist, Capital One, JPMorgan Chase, PNC Bank, U.S. Bank, and Wells Fargo.
It's most definitely not "government-based".
* Zelle is basically better bank transfers and is already supported by many (most?) US banks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zelle_(payment_service)
* Random 'third party' money transfer services like Venmo, Cashapp, Paypal, etc.
But similar to messaging in the US, the main issue is fragmentation. There's isn't quite a national consensus like some other countries have.
And Zelle is a bank to bank transfer network, not a third party service.
That's...what I said? Well, I guess I should've contrasted it better with the old, 'traditional' bank transfer payments.
1) Write a physical check (2-10 days from deposit, usually 2) 2) Use ACH (a virtual check) (2-10 days, usually 2) 3) Fedwire which costs $10-$15 to both the sender and receiver (15 minutes).