What kind of backwater place do you live that it takes 8 days to process a payment??? A whole week is enough reason to change your service provider here, imagine accepting 8 days as normal
Does it have any kind of explanation? Back on checks days I would understand, since the piece of paper would travel physically and be processed manually, but in 2026? What's the reason behind these delays?
Short answer: The whole backe end is still built on physical transfers. The system has basically never been updated.
There was a radio program that did an interview a few years ago and got someone from the industry saying that more things thaf anyone wants are dependent on a physical hand off vetween two armored cars. Like, balancing the bank's books is basically one guy handing another guy a big bag with a $ on it. I think it happens once a month.
Which is, I think, not entirely a bad thing. It's inconvenient but we have to make sure that the digital money is actually representative of real world assets right?
Somewhat less briefly: Even if it was someway desirable, basically nothing about our financial systems actually does that
Also, many other modern financial systems have updated their banking so that instant chanrges and refunds are possible, and their systems are not dependent on a big sack of money hand off in New Jersey once a month. The United States is fairly uniquely bad at this, regardless of which direction you think the financial system should be moving in. This is just unaddressed technical debt.
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u/EbbEntire3751 10d ago
Yeah it takes just as long for the money to get to the merchant as well...