[kasey_junk]

The comparison between SA bank transactions and UPI is pretty superficial. Precisely because the sender needs to know banking details about the receiver and to confirm the transaction on the receiver side you need access to the receivers bank data. UPI does not require either of those! It’s pretty great, and what modern bank transfers will look like.

SA bank transfers, like non-US bank transfers, are newer, cheaper and faster than their US counterparts, but aren’t fundamentally different in the mechanics and the edge cases. More in the regulations and market forces on banks.

That’s not to say they aren’t good! They certainly are in comparison to US bank transfers. But UPI does compare closer to sci fi.

[davchana]

True. UPI is amazing. The Zelle in US is similar, but lacks in that private group of banks control it, whereas UPI central processing is public or government controlled. Also, zelle is not implemented same in every bank. For a person with multiple accounts in same bank, Capital One allows a unique email address for directing zelle txns to each unique account. Discover allows that specific mapping only if initiated from discover itself. Chase does not allow you to have zelle connected to more than 1 account of yours.

[dyates]

Later on the article, when he talks about not needing access to the receiving account to confirm payments, I kinda got it. Just the initial framing of "what if we used bank transfers for payments" threw me for a loop.