[daxcurzon]

This is indeed mind boggling from a European perspective. Visa/Mastercard and banks just taking 1.5% of everyone's money because fast and free bank transfers for reasonable amounts don't exist.

People in the US pay all their bills with physical checks and debit cards, which is even more absurd considering that the US banks and credit card companies, last time I checked, still don't require proper 2-factor authentication for online payments or require PIN for in-person payments. Any time I make payments online in Europe, I have to use 2-factor auth and an e-PIN; it adds a whopping 5 seconds to the payment process.

Only large transfers in my country have a fee. I bought a flat a few years ago and sending a 6-figure sum (USD equivalent) to the escrow account only cost me $15 in transfer fees and it arrived a few hours later, though a person from the bank did call to confirm as a security precaution.

[blamazon]

> Visa/Mastercard and banks just taking 1.5% of everyone's money

It should be noted that in the EU, interchange fees are limited, by law[1] to 0.2% for debit cards and 0.3% for credit cards.

It was an interesting consequence of Brexit that (certain) interchange fees shot right up to 1.5% in the UK. [2]

[1]: https://cms.law/en/bgr/publication/eu-cap-on-interchange-fee...

[2]: https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-payments-watchdog-review...