[cc81]

I live in Sweden and it is much quicker. I just transferred some money between my bank and Avanza which is one of the largest stock trading sites in Sweden. You have two options:

1. "Direct deposit", all largest banks in Sweden support it and that means that the money is transferred real time. That service is open between 7am and 11pm at Avanza.

2. Normal bank transfer and that takes one day in Sweden.

Source in Swedish but you could translate it: https://www.avanza.se/kundservice.html/281/vad-ar-direktinsa...

Avanza does not have a limit on how much money you can transfer but your bank might have, in that case you might have to rise that limit if you want to transfer a lot.

I don't know if it takes a day or two or clear (or more) if I buy from China but from my perspective it is usually an incredibly smooth checkout and I will get my stuff x amount of weeks later if I'm cheap with transport costs.

[buboard]

i dont think its possible to make an international bank transfer in 1 day. Maybe through SEPA (not sure? ) but that's just inside the EU.

Also, how are fees in sweden ? bank transfer/currency exchange fees are just an absurd abuse of power imho.

[jddj]

I recently moved a fair sum of money between two countries where no EU-style agreements exist.

I used regular money and went through a fairly well-known fintech company who specializes in this type of thing, and I think the whole process only took around 6 hours.

From memory it cost around 0.5% of the transfer value, and gave me the true mid-market rate.

We're not truly living in a world where it's Bitcoin or we stay completely at the mercy of the banks (w.r.t sending money across borders, at least), and the banks will catch up to where the fintech is - much like Travel Agents, they're just still successfully arbitraging their incumbency against the knowledge (w.r.t technology and the other options available) level of the general population.

[buboard]

depends on the country. you re lucky you live in a good one, i live in one of the worst.

[jddj]

Ah shit, that's totally fair. Sorry for coming off as tone-deaf, I got stuck in my filter bubble for a moment.

While international development hopefully isn't a complete lost cause (on long enough timescales), I can definitely see how cryptocurrency could be seen as a viable shortcut around poor government in this respect.

[cc81]

Sure, this is within Sweden.

[buboard]

Then you re exaggerating it. Yuo can't even do that between EU countries, which are literally a single market. Imagine spending your next mediterranean vacation with just your Swish app, you 'd probably starve. The thing is, whatever good infrastructure sweden has built, it will take a looong time for similar tech to be adopted throughout much of the world (and i m pretty certain it will meet a mountain of resistance from rent-seeking banks). Instead, cryptos only require that the other party can download a wallet app, which is arguably easier.

[CaptainZapp]

Imagine spending your next mediterranean vacation with just your Swish app, you 'd probably starve.

Ohh, I don't think you would eat any better by only packing bitcoin.

[buboard]

but that was not my point

[cc81]

But when I'm on vacation then my Mastercard in combination with cash works without hassle. There is just one big win with crypto and that would be if I want to send money to someone over distance reasonably anonymously. That is where I can see a real gain over my current setup offers.

[buboard]

right , but if the combination of cash+mastercard was as convenient as swish, you would not use swish in sweden.