[astrange]

It's cheaper to do it slower - banks don't have to constantly talk to each other all day. Russia actually gave up on same day settlement and called it a modernization.

https://www.fintechfutures.com/2013/03/moscow-exchange-adopt...

Also, you may still be able to pay for stocks with checks at some places, so the cash isn't always available.

[FireBeyond]

When I left Australia in 2006, inter bank transfers settled every four hours. Often by ISDN lines between banks. "Constantly talking" is a BS excuse. As far as I know (someone still there can correct me) inter bank transfers there are now down to 5 minutes.

The US banking system is arcane and archaic. It's cheaper not to modernize to be sure. Forgive me for being frustrated at banks cheaping out on this when they average quarter of a trillion dollars in profit every year over the last few years.

[db579]

Yep, in Europe inter-bank transfers are also instant and if the underlying reason for all these regulations, confusions and trading impact is that US institutions have just been too cheap to upgrade the legacy infrastructure running the biggest store and exchange of value in the world then frankly surprise and anger seems justified.

[manquer]

In India IMPS or UPI tranfer is less than a second.NEFT is weekends every one hour. RTGS is more or less real time

I routinely pay street vendors directly from my bank account to theirs for 10¢ transactions .

[sildur]

In Europe we have instant transfers. We can transfer from any bank to any bank in the EU in less than 20 seconds, guaranteed.

[CRConrad]

Doesn't quite feel that fast with mine.