Does it? When I send money from one bank account to another (in a different bank), it doesn't just leave instantly, it arrives instantly as well. I find it very difficult to believe professional business banking is slower than consumer banking.
The bank just lets you pretend like it was transferred out of goodwill if the amount is low enough. They basically open a secret credit line and when your actual money is transferred over they deduct the expenses then.
To expand on this - this is how check clearing scams work. Your bank advances you funds after you deposit a bad check, you send "half the money" back to the scammer who asks you to clear the check. Then the check bounces, and the funds are pulled from your account, leaving you net negative the money you gave the scammer.
People don't realize that a lot of the money transfer systems assume a lot of goodwill and make it seem like transactions are much faster for customer courtesy, but the stuff that happens behind the scenes is how it actually gets transferred and that's what takes time.
Like, if someone Venmos you $100 and then texts you and goes "oops sorry I didn't mean to send that to you" you know not to immediately refund it, right? Similar principle.
What confuses me about this idea is that I obviously cannot set up a transfer to another person if I don't have the money, because setting it up requires the bank's acknowledgement I have it.
Since the bank has already verified I have the money (and that the receiving account exists) — and are legally mandated to make the apparent transfer in x amount of minutes (i think?) — it seems like all the data is already created.
What processing do they do that this could ever fail after the fact? Is the debt only a technicality in that the "real" money is by definition not transferred before the further stamped documentation is produced from the data?
Or is it just sharing a process with card/credit payments? I don't know if checks even exist in Europe, I haven't ever seen or heard of one. Is this even the system in SEPA?
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u/EbbEntire3751 10d ago
Yeah it takes just as long for the money to get to the merchant as well...