Is Balanced Payments working on something that can put funds into someones bank account within the hour?
ACH, wire transfers, etc. - it is amazing how much of our "modern" banking practice is still defined by the constraints of (literally) horses and buggies.
3pm cutoff times, overnight settlement, multi-day wire settlement ... what a clown show.
For most B2B FedWires, it's pretty much instant. Yay Treasury.
The cutoffs do suck, however.
The US needs to catch up to the rest of the world with regards to banking. And also kill off checks.
http://www.frbservices.org/servicefees/fedwire_funds_service...
It costs less than $1 to send a FedWire. The FedWire can be up to $1BN. :)
The FedWire system is actually very similar to transfer systems in other countries. I'm not sure why ACH is still in use apart from as a way to digitize checks.
That said, most banks charge, at minimum, $12 per wire in/out for personal accounts. Most business/corporate accounts get wires free since that's how people pay each other (something like $1TN in wires is processed every day).
> At this point, under any other circumstances, the $9 billion would be wired electronically from one bank to the other. But there were a few problems with wiring the money. First off, it was a holiday weekend and banks would be closed in both countries until Tuesday. Secondly, wiring any amount of money usually takes 2-3 days and Morgan Stanley may not have survived another 24 hours! Finally, Morgan Stanley was itching to make a formal announcement of the merger as soon as possible in order to stop their stock price from plummeting any further. ... A few hours later, the Mitsubishi bankers returned to Morgan Stanley’s headquarters with what will likely go down in history as the biggest check ever written.
http://www.celebritynetworth.com/articles/entertainment-arti...