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Comment by betteryet | Hacker News Reader

Many countries including European now have just scan a QR code. The EU payment scheme Wero is bringing that cross-border for EUR. Instant and very low fees.

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I don't use Wero, yet, but I'm not really convinced when I read about it. Firstly, it lets anyone lookup the name associated with a phone number or email address, which is a privacy nightmare. Secondly, only a single bank account can be used with a phone number or email. This just seems badly designed.

SEPA transfers are zero fees by law.

And instant (under 10 seconds)

Not by default. Deutsche Bank for instance makes you select it and I'm guessing most people are afraid that choosing instant means a fee so they leave it off.

Most banks did charge a fee at first, so this rollout is partly to blame for the option being available and the hesitancy.

There was another European payment system change to remove* the fees for real-time (official name) transfers, roughly a year ago. Together with the removal of international fees 10? years ago, it is indeed instant (if you check the box) and free across the EU now.

IIRC, real-time transfers commonly used to cost 50 cents (flat).

* Technically, they aren't allowed to cost more than regular transfers which cost 0 in ~all retail accounts

No, they are not.

Just checked, by EU law, banks cannot charge more for a SEPA euro transfer than they do for a local transfer within your own country.

... which boils down to 0 fees on any side for any transaction I've ever done, across quite a few countries in EU and to/from Switzerland. I don't think any sane retail bank dares to charge anything, people would migrate to competition in an instant.

Some business accounts charge a 20 to 50 cent flat fee. I think mine does. Retail basically never, yes.

Yes, this is pretty standard for business accounts.

there were some exceptions though, like in Greece, where banks charged for every sepa transaction. not sure if that's still the case.

I have an account in Denmark which charges for outgoing transactions, 3 DKK. (€0.40.)

I think I have the choice to pay a monthly fee, nominate it as my official account for receiving my salary, or pay for the transactions.

I choose the last option as it's a backup account, and I make perhaps 1 transaction per year.

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