[terinjokes]

> Why would you use a piece of paper for any sum of money?

In the US, sending money to another person's account, especially as an individual, is a difficult process, often requiring giving long account and routing numbers that many of us were told not to give out. It also takes several days to process, and sometimes has fees of $25-30. Also some banks have limitations allowing you to do transfers only to accounts where the name matches.

While many major banks have an online transfer system (eg, Zelle), this is far from being universally supported (my bank is not a member) and many people don't have it setup. Also the transfer limits might be low.

Other options like Venmo or Cash require both sides of the transaction to have an account. They also don't work well outside of friend-to-friend interactions.

My understanding is the US is due to replace the current clearing house system with one up to modern standards, but we'll see how that goes.

[rowanajmarshall]

> often requiring giving long account and routing numbers that many of us were told not to give out. It also takes several days to process, and sometimes has fees of $25-30

I get there probably isn't a single answer to this, BUT WHY? The US is a mature, skilled economy with a competitive B2C market, why does it still lag behind even comparable countries in terms of consumer financial infrastructure?

[justsomehnguy]

> BUT WHY?

In US even the idea what there are could be some nation-wide (ie federal) registry of it's own citizen could get you pitch-forked. US still doesn't have a national-wide internal ID, and for the thing what essentially replaced it in function - driver's ID, every state has it's own format and idea what should be in it. It is not uncommon to hear what for something what requires ID (like buying alcohol or entering a nightclub) the people out of state would be barred from doing so because the clerk doesn't recognize the driver's ID of some other state and thinks it is a fraudulent one.

Most European countries have it easy, compared to the US, having a single law across the country and one citizens registry, or at least something much closer to it than the US.

Add to this a whole "embarrassed millionaire" mentality and a total unwillingness even to acknowledge the need for a change.

For the last one see any thread on Reddit where sane^W any non-American asks why US shops can't write the final price on the tag already.

[Gravityloss]

I think this thread shows most American people don't understand European bank transfers.

I give you my account number. No risk to me. You can't take money from my account. You can only put money into that account.

No statewide ID or anything like that is needed by anyone for this system to work.

Checques work the opposite. I give you permission to take money from my account with a piece of paper. Very risky!

[justsomehnguy]

> No statewide ID

"Sure but now everyone can track me down with my account ID! [Which is of course in the number of The Devil!11]" - the guy who has SSN.

I wasn't clear in my previous post, but statewide ID isn't needed for the consumers, of course, but behind the curtains this is still much a bank to bank wire transfer, just using a different protocols. One of the attack vectors is making an account, filling it with money (eg stolen from the other accounts) following with the cash out and begone in the wind. With the near instant money transfers it would means it could be done VERY fast and nobody (except criminals) would be happy if that could be done easily. Having an account tied to your nation-wide ID means you can do it only once and then you have painted a target on your back by yourself. Of course there are SSN, KYC and other things, but aside from FBI's Most Wanted (joke) there is amusingly small list of things one US state entity can know about entity of other US state.

It is also always helpful to remember to treat US not as a country but as an association of countries under a single flag and currency. That way it would be much easier to answer multiple "WHY in America...." questions.

[rowanajmarshall]

> It is also always helpful to remember to treat US not as a country but as an association of countries under a single flag and currency.

But is this materially any different to other federations, like Australia, Germany, and Canada (who’s provinces generally have significantly more autonomy than US states)?

[yencabulator]

> US still doesn't have a national-wide internal ID, and for the thing what essentially replaced it in function - driver's ID, every state has it's own format and idea what should be in it.

One of the nation-wide IDs actively in use is the tuple (state, driver_license_number).

[justsomehnguy]

Which means John Doe, DOB 11/12/1975, 6'12'' (OH, 123456) and John Doe, DOB 11/12/1975, 6'12'' (FL, 123456) are two different people!

[yencabulator]

Each identifier identifies a person. A person may have multiple identifiers. I have a non-US nationally-unique drivers license ID and a passport number.

[Aeolun]

I imagine it is very profitable for the existing players.

[jen20]

> with a competitive B2C market

This is the disconnect. There are only a couple of national banks, and they are all crappy in their own important ways. This was largely the same in the UK until Mon{z,d}o came along and banks had to treat user experience as a source of competitive advantage seemingly overnight.

[wiltuk]

The Faster Payments Service, which has allowed transfers between accounts of any UK bank which usually happen within minutes has existed since 2008. And it is free to use for non-business account holders throughout the entire market.

Paym, which allows transfers using mobile numbers is available with most high-street banks, but notably, not the fintech banks has been available since 2014. So arguably the fintech banks are behind the curve here, likely to try and drive some sort of network effect to increase friction of transferring money to customers of other banks.

Were the existing banks processes, apps & websites janky before the likes of Monzo came about? Sure, to varying extents. But the actual method of making transfers between accounts hasn't been influenced at all by the new banks, they're all using the existing structures that everybody was using before.

[golergka]

> In the US, sending money to another person's account, especially as an individual, is a difficult process, often requiring giving long account and routing numbers that many of us were told not to give out. It also takes several days to process, and sometimes has fees of $25-30. Also some banks have limitations allowing you to do transfers only to accounts where the name matches.

Wow. Here in Russia you only need a phone number, and when you enter it all the banks that recipient uses are automatically shown to you when you, it takes about 5 second and is completely free.

[codedokode]

It's not "completely free". If you transfer more than 100 000 roubles/month (~ $1360) then it costs 0.5% of the amount. There are also limits of about several hundreds of roubles per month.

If the recipient wants to withdraw the cash in less than 30 days after receiving the payment, the bank may request documents that prove compliance with anti-laundering regulations. If you fail to provide such written documents then the bank will charge a fee of about 5-10%.

Also it is not secure because anyone who has your phone number can learn in what banks you have accounts. And if you have an account in Sberbank, anyone can lookup your name by your phone number. Very convenient for criminals and scammers.

[pixl97]

>If the recipient wants to withdraw the cash in less than 30 days after receiving the payment, the bank may request documents that prove compliance with anti-laundering regulations.

The US is similar with amounts over $10,000. Structuring transactions to avoid that number is also forbidden.

[wlesieutre]

> In the US, sending money to another person's account, especially as an individual, is a difficult process, often requiring giving long account and routing numbers that many of us were told not to give out

Writing a check instead won’t avoid that since the account and routing number are printed right on it

[terinjokes]

Oops, I could have reworded that paragraph to be clearer. Yeah, the check giver can't do much, but as the other commenters point out, the receiver of funds doesn't need to give out the numbers.

[squeaky-clean]

I can receive and cash a check from someone without giving them my account/routing info.

[wlesieutre]

Ah yes, good point it does work for getting paid.