[wereHamster]

> Every other form of payment online is “pull”, […]

Wat? When I transfer money to another account via my bank's ebanking app that is very much "push". The transfer is executed either immediately or at the end of the business day. Nobody is pulling anything.

[anonymouz]

I assume you live in the EU (or somewhere else outside the US), where it is the most natural thing to just send money from your account to another one.

This simply isn't a thing in the US, as I discovered when moving to there for a time. They use third-party apps, cheques, and wire transfers (which are expensive and seem to work via ACH, a pull type system). It's simply not possible to go into your ebanking app and transfer money to someone elses account. (With very restrictive exceptions, e.g. same bank, or maybe the bank has integrated a third party service...)

As inconceivable as the American system is in the beginning for somebody coming from the EU, I guess for many people from the US it's similarly non-obvious that a push system can (and does) exist somewhere else.

[iagovar]

But why? It just doesn't make sense to not have a push system. I, honestly, don't get it.

[watersb]

Lived in the USA all my life, have always wanted to have direct transfer as you describe.