[jedberg]

Banking in the US is utterly ridiculous. In Europe, if you need to move up to 100,000E in a day, you can do it with a few clicks or taps, and maybe a card reader that they already gave you.

In the US, you have to use a wire transfer is you're moving more than about $4,000. And wires cost a lot of money. And they aren't even instant even though they are billed that way.

I had to move some money from one account I own to another, and I needed it there the same day. The only way to make it happen was to drive 15 minutes to the origin bank, spend 15 minutes filling out a paper form in the branch, which was then faxed to the central processing center. Then I had to call the center center every hour to see if they'd gotten to it yet. When they finally did do it, I had to call the receiving bank with the tracking number and tell them, and then they had to find it on their side, which took a couple minutes, before it was finally processed.

From the time I finished filling out the "instant" wire form (and paying $45!) to the time it hit my other account was over three hours! And that was after the initial 30 minute delay of driving to the bank and filling out a paper form.

[dreamcompiler]

I've given up moving large amounts of money electronically in the US. It just doesn't work. What does work? Write a paper check to yourself on the "from" bank and use the "to" bank's app on your phone to take a picture of the check for deposit, then keep the paper check in a file folder for later auditing.

Seriously. This is disgusting but it works.

[jedberg]

It works but it doesn't clear in the same day. If you need the money today, a wire transfer is the only way.

[jjeaff]

Most banks credit the money to your account, up to a certain amount immediately.

Which is helpful in cases like this. And purely idiotic in many other cases because it enables check cashing scams which are probably the number one most popular scam in the US.

[reaperducer]

You're lucky it went in three hours.

A couple of times I've moved between $17,000 and $40,000, and Chase sits on it for up to TEN DAYS before it will release received the funds.

Chase claims it's a federal regulation, but no one in the branch or on the phone can tell me which one.

[dreamcompiler]

Any transfer of $10k or more (and in many cases less) requires reports by the financial institutions to the IRS and potentially other government agencies. Why that would cause huge delays I don't know. Most likely Chase just wanted to make some money on the float.

[jjeaff]

The Patriot Act kyc reporting requirements would have nothing to do with the delay. The reporting requirement is simply that. It isn't a wait and see to confirm it's ok. You just report the transaction after the fact.

It's all about the float.

The federal deposit rate for banks is 2.35% right now. That's $64 to the bank for every million dollars every day it is deposited at the fed.

Now imagine a large bank like chase is dealing with billions of dollars a day in transfers. Hold it several days when you receive a transfer and hold it several days before sending a transfer and you are making literally millions of dollars every month just for dragging your feet on transfers.

[gaadd33]

What's wrong with doing an ACH transfer for amounts of more than $4,000? Most large banks seem to have limits of $25k/day for those transfers and that can be increased pretty easily (at least on business accounts). There usually aren't any fees for those either.

[jedberg]

You must be quite rich. Every account I've ever seen limits ACH to $4,000 unless you have at least $100,000 in the bank, and then they will up it to $25,000.

[gaadd33]

No not at all, not even 2 months rent in my bank account. Maybe try some different banks? My only experiences are with Chase, Marcus and a very small town bank.

[useful]

You can now do an instant ACH transfer of 5000 or less with Chase. Takes about 5 minutes. I do it between Chase and BofA.

[jedberg]

Yes, $5,000. In Europe it's 100,000. Big difference.

$5,000 isn't enough to cover rent in San Francisco.

[toomuchtodo]

Very few people in the US live in SF. For everyone else, it works a treat (I have a Chase account just for Zelle/Chase Pay transfers).

[jedberg]

SF rent was just an example. There are many examples of needing to move money in amounts greater than $5,000 but less than $120,000. For example, I can't pay a contractor with Zelle because they almost always need more than $5,000.

Yes, Zelle is a nice stopgap solution, except it is only supported by a few banks, and still has really low sending limits.

[devonkim]

Zelle isn’t even a stopgap solution oftentimes. With Navy Federal Credit Union I can’t transfer more than $2500 anyway through Zelle as their servicer. I really don’t understand why banks in the US kneecap services from elsewhere in the world that seem to have perfectly acceptable rates of fraud while consumer identity protection seems strong enough elsewhere there’s hardly much risk from that side. Nobody’s explained the issues unique to the US that nobody else in the world has that makes our system so backwards in comparison (much like our healthcare system, but that seems rather easy to understand in comparison).

[easymodex]

I have been in a similar situation and to me it's one of the main reasons why we need cryptocurrencies.

[majewsky]

Not at all. The Single European Payment Area solves these issues without wasting a gargantuan amount of energy.

[easymodex]

Isn't all the infrastructure, people employed, offices and everything needed to support something also a waste of energy if it can be replaced by some lines of code? Also with your energy wasting straw man remark i assume you are talking specifically about bitcoin which is just one of many cryptocurrencies and a lot of them aren't based on proof of work.

[majewsky]

Sure, there is a lot of energy expended for the traditional banking infrastructure. It also serves multiple magnitudes more transactions than any cryptocurrency.

[jedberg]

Cryptocurrencies don't solve this problem, but they do lack the regulations and baggage that cause it.

[dnadler]

I'll take my government insured bank account over cryptocurrency any day of the week.