[bdauvergne]

With SEPA framework Europe does not need any payment card processor anymore, you can settle any payment with instant and free wire transfer through the eurozone. It's not only the bank that are coming after Visa and Mastercard, it's the eurozone.

[noodlesUK]

Ultimately the semantics of instant push payment transfers are pretty different from card purchases.

Chargebacks for instance are a key protection which I have made use of multiple times. There’s no such option available with bank transfers. The card networks are typically the ones who handle dispute arbitration and various other issues between merchants and card issuers/cardholders.

Those kinds of features mean that people are comfortable using their bank/credit cards, safe in the knowledge that they’ll be okay if someone steals the card or a merchant makes an error or defrauds them.

There are all sorts of protections available to merchants like card holds which make buying a hotel room much more seamless.

[Dalewyn]

>Chargebacks for instance are a key protection which I have made use of multiple times. There’s no such option available with bank transfers.

In case someone doesn't understand why this is the case:

Banks don't really care about your money.

Banks really care about their money.

When you buy something with a debit card, you are spending your money.

When you buy something with a credit card, you are spending the bank's money.

Yes, banks tout zero fraud liability with your debit charges just like credit charges; no, their enthusiasm is /dev/null compared to credit charges.

[noodlesUK]

This is largely true, and it’s codified into law in some places (see s.75 in the UK), however I would say that the protections provided by most major banks on debit card purchases are actually pretty good. The chargeback process for most issuers is very similar or the same. You should use a credit card because you have stronger legal protections, but it’s not like most banks will screw you just for using a debit card.

[awesomeMilou]

Sepa direct debit has chargebacks.

[noodlesUK]

Yes, but it’s only an 8 week window and there’s no dispute arbitration process, which is actually bad for merchants too.

[awesomeMilou]

Most merchants in the EU are not interested in partaking in a dispute arbitration process. You will find such disclaimers in the TOS of many european webshops, as the EU has laws in place that would permit arbitration.

If there is a dispute, it will typically end up in court.

[tticvs]

It's a tradeoff, for example the German Girocard network is fundamentally built on top of SEPA so it is very low cost.

But that also means that it does not support features that credit card networks support like chargebacks or 3DS. For that reason it also doesn't work online.

This is a space that a lot of bank transfer payment schemes fit into: low cost, fast settlement, high risk.

[radiator]

SEPA payments are not free between different banks in all countries. There can be charges of 4€ within the same country, even for small amounts.

[jahnu]

Instant SEPA is free for me with my Austrian Erste Bank account but €1.50 with my easyBank account.

Interestingly, Erste have it off by default in the mobile app so I always have to turn it on for each transfer.

Non-free transfers between those banks can take about 1 hour but if too late in the day then 1 business day.

[catdog]

At least in Germany they usually are free for personal accounts (if not your contract is likely shit, choose a better bank).

SEPA instant might cost extra or not be available but both of that will change soon due to new EU regulations.

[radiator]

In Germany, competition seems to work in this case, so it is free. I believe SEPA dictates that an intercommunity transfer may not be more expensive than a transfer within the same country. So if a bank in country X charges you 4€ to receive money from another bank in the same country X, it may also charge you 4€ for receiving money from Germany.

[earnesti]

I've been paying like 0.9eur fixed fee. However often they are free. I don't know what exactly the logic is with the fees. Anyway I wouldn't see it as a suitable method for small retail payments.

[kome]

Perhaps you need to update your contract or something, SEPA for eur-to-eur wires are free in most of banks.

[ben_w]

The shops around here barely support card payments, I'm not expecting them to do direct bank transfers for a single freshly baked bread roll.

[earnesti]

That sounds like nonsense. How is sepä going to replace my payment card? I haven't seen a single sepa branded payment card around. Visa and MasterCard are all about the cards, SEPA is for money transfers from your bank account and has nothing to do with cards.

[TimK65]

The idea is for you to be able to pay merchants without using a card.

For example, I'm in Sweden, and when I get my hair cut, I can Swish my payment to the barber using the Swish app. They get the money within a few seconds. It's very simple. They have a QR code on the wall that I scan with the Swish app, enter the amount I want to pay (I usually add a tip), authenticate with BankID, and that's basically it.

[thekoma]

I’ve never had a free SEPA transfer. Where is that a thing?

[z3n0n]

Literally every bank to bank transfer in Europe? Edit: apparently there are some complexities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Euro_Payments_Area (sees Charges) but personally I've never paid a single cent either

[berdario]

Yeah, it's a bit of a mess.

https://wise.com/help/articles/2956754/what-are-sepa-transfe...

> However, while banks shouldn’t charge for receiving SEPA payments, unfortunately there is a very small number that may still do so.

I can also confirm for example that (despite the UK still being in SEPA), wire transfers of Euro from Unicredit in Italy are getting extra charges when sent to a british IBAN (Unicredit is charging the sending side).

[calmoo]

It’s like the main feature of a SEPA transfer, is that it’s free.

[MaBu]

It was never free or instant. It only works from 9-15 on workdays and not on weekends. Also if there are holidays in eu also doesn't work for domestic transfers. Easter is fun whe it stops for 4 days even though country has only 3 state holidays during those times. Costs from 25-40 cents per domestic transaction or 7-17 euro per over border one. Depending on the bank.

It takes around an hour or some days over border for transfer to go through.

Maybe you think of sepa instant which is supported by some banks. Very new. Mostly used for people to people transfers. Some shops are starting to support it. It is actually instantaneous anc works weekends. It seems to be mostly free.

[Radim]

In addition, SEPA was never free. So OP is also wrong there.

The regulation only stipulates "equality of charges", that the bank's fees for a payment into another SEPA country/bank must be the same as into the same bank or within the same country [0]. I.e. no payment fee discrimination across SEPA: if my Czech bank X charges me Y for a local EUR payment into X, it must also charge me Y for the same EUR payment into Italy, for example.

Would any bank actually charge their customers Y>0 like that? Yes they would. For example the Bank of Cyprus (in Cyprus, which is in both EU & SEPA) will charge you 6 EUR for a SEPA payment of 1200 EUR if the sender is a physical person, and 10 EUR if legal person [1]. And 4 EUR for smaller EUR amounts. Far from "free".

[0] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2009/924/oj

[1] https://www.bankofcyprus.com/globalassets/cyprus/org_methods... [PDF]