Comment by nolok | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nolok | Hacker News Reader

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To agree with your point; if the entire EU, with country having completely different level of developpement and banking infrastructure and currency and language, managed to standardize and deploy unified SEPA wires including instant wires, then that argument cannot be accepted for the US.

It's easier and faster (and probably cheaper) for me to instant wire money from one euro to several thousand to any random Bulgarian person or business in their own currency, or for said business to take money from my account, while retaining all banking protection, than it is for two silicon valley Californian to do it short of using a private business solution.

Overall the state of the banking and payment infrastructure in the US compared to their advancement level always weirds members out. Well, not infrastructure not the right word, I'm sure the backend is great but what is exposed to people seem to suck.

It's your money you should be feeling in charge not finding solution to be able to use it.

Someone who defends the insanely slow speed of US innovation with consumer finance has not spent any amount of time talking to folks outside of the US.

There is this wild myth that the US is the only true developed economy.

The US is incredibly insular with how it approaches financial innovation.

As many of us deal with software, it’s the equivalent of “N-I-H Syndrome”.

We’re only just now starting to get Fedwire after India, Australia, the Eurozone, and countless other countries have had instant payments for a while.

> The US is incredibly insular with how it approaches financial innovation.

Financial innovation is more than debit transactions.

The US has thousands of financial products that don’t exist in Europe, far more widespread access to credit and a better credit scoring system, better fintech (For example it’s pretty trivial to get a competitively priced loan instantly approved online in a matter of minutes). Plus Europeans have absolutely garbage real estate products, most people are holding short term variable rate mortgages. I’m sorry but Id take the US system over that any day.

> unified SEPA wires including instant wires

Just to clarify a detail, SEPA bank transfers are not instant yet and until very recently could take 6 days, even between banks in the same country and small amounts.

SEPA Instant has existed since 2017, and in 2025 it will become mandatory for all banks to support for free.

Despite it existing for a long time, support for it is far from universal still.

In Sweden there is only a single bank in the entire country that has proper SEPA instant support. Some banks still charge extra for it as well.

My own bank required some coercion before they would let me send money to my European friends (to pay for shared travel expenses).

> In Sweden there is only a single bank in the entire country that has proper SEPA instant support. Some banks still charge extra for it as well.

> My own bank required some coercion before they would let me send money to my European friends (to pay for shared travel expenses).

Hence the new legislation to make it mandatory next year.

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