[lxgr]

If you prefer the user experience of cards over that of checks, imagine a world in which you can transfer money to anybody with a bank account by telling your bank to make a payment to their account number!

That's been the reality in many countries other than the US for decades :) And maybe (hopefully!), the US will finally catch up with FedNow.

Of course that model doesn't work for everything (it's usually a bad idea to pre-pay for goods or services with bank transfers since there is essentially no consumer protection in case the merchant goes bankrupt or turns out to be a fraudster), but I'm still fascinated by the US's lack of a "giro" system, i.e. an accountholder-initiated P2P and B2C push payment service.

[toast0]

> Of course that model doesn't work for everything (it's usually a bad idea to pre-pay for goods or services with bank transfers since there is essentially no consumer protection in case the merchant goes bankrupt or turns out to be a fraudster), but I'm still fascinated by the US's lack of a "giro" system, i.e. an accountholder-initiated P2P and B2C push payment service.

We have wire transfers which work like this, through the FedWire system. They're instant, can't easily be reversed, and usually expensive and inconvenient to use.

[lxgr]

Wires are not a mass payments system by any means, though.

The equivalent to SEPA credit and debit transfers would be ACH, just that in the US, it is generally not possible for individual/private account holders to initiate outbound ACH credit transfers.

FedNow might be just that, but I’m not sure yet US bank customers will become comfortable with sharing their account number freely in order to receive P2P payments that easily.