this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2023
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Europe

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[–] [email protected] 83 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The technical capability for instant SEPA transfers already exists (and has existed for a while), this is about making it free for everyone (some banks charge an extra fee for instant transfers).

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

And many do not offer it at all

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yeah, my last bank charged around 15ct per instant transfer. I was unpleasantly surprised when I found out that my current bank takes 2 Euros…

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 1 year ago (12 children)

Maybe make the bank Apps a little more intuitive to use and make it easier to send recurring payments to your friends and the monopoly of paypal in germany could disappear

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Yeah. It's really a UI issue at this point. Just a simple frontend to facilitate SEPA transactions to contacts (which could just be a simple Name -> IBAN map stored locally)

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I could imagine something like an IBAN protocol - open an IBAN link as in iban://AB26374838388 directly with your banking app and auto fill the bank transfer menu. Only add the amount of money you want to transfer.

No idea what other implications that would have e.g. for security though

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Oh, add an ?amount=32€ as well as a text=Pizza parameter and you're almost there ...

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Separate ?amount=32 and currency=Euro to add currency support.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I thought about that, but I think it's actually more error prone, because people might just be setting ?amount=32 and leaving out currency which might lead to unexpected behaviour. Implementors tend to interpret this differently and one app might take the default currency and the other might fail to accept it, and that kind of different behaviour is a common source of security issues. Having a single unified parameter that must always contain the value and currency "solves" that issue.

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[–] technohacker 3 points 1 year ago

Dammit we've just made UPI

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

There's a standard that does this in form of a QR code: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPC_QR_code

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

True, my bank also supports this. I already saw QR-Codes on some invoices but never used it... will try it out next time.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Alternatively, let's kill contact lists completely and do this some other way. Contact lists are already a privacy disaster, allowing users to compromise all their friends' personal information without a hint of consent.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

You should push for something like BIZUM. Say what you will about Spain but we got that right.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Brazil has PIX: 24/7 instant (inter)bank transfers without any fees, you only need the money and the other person's key (email, phone number, SSN, random key or QR code)

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

We have it too but not internationally (yet).

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


A legal deal struck late Tuesday (7 November) could spell an end to days-long delays in receiving cash for Europeans, who instead could soon transfer funds between bank accounts within seconds.

Instant payments, as they’re known, allow money to move in the blink of an eye — and a new EU law making them the default option across the bloc has been hailed as good news by consumer advocates.

The commission argued its move would free up billions of euros that, at any given moment, aren’t available for people or businesses to spend because they’re in transit through payment systems.

Under the new plans, banks will have to provide the service to their clients at no extra cost, under strict deadlines, said Dutch lawmaker Michiel Hoogeveen, who shepherded the proposals through the European Parliament.

According to a separate statement from the Council of the EU, there’ll be a longer transition period for countries like Sweden and Poland that aren’t in the eurozone.

“This is fantastic news for everyone who wants their payments processed in seconds, not days,” the McGuinness said in a post on social media site X, saying the new rules will make instant transfers “universal, affordable and secure.”


The original article contains 528 words, the summary contains 199 words. Saved 62%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In Spain we have bizum. It is instant, well integrated with bank apps, works with a mobile number and it is free.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The Netherlands has Tikkie, same thing. And my bank has instantaneous transfers all across the EU… I’ll never change bank

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Actually, the goal is to fold all of these national digital payment schemes (like iDeal, Payconic, Giropay,...) into a unified European system called WERO which is also based on SEPA Instant Transfers and will be rolled out over the next couple of years. They actually just finished the acquisition of iDeal recently.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (7 children)

How is Australia ahead of Europe! We have Osko which allows instant transfer(seconds) upto $10,000 per day. It's fantastic.

[–] [email protected] 49 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The whole EU already has SEPA Instant Payments which allow the transfer of up to 100.000€ per transaction in under 3 seconds. This law is just about making it Default

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And free if I remember correctly. I never used it because my bank was like "Fees might apply". Trying to figure out which fees and how much was pretty much impossible.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (13 children)

In Germany it’s generally 1€ per transaction 🤡

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It's not that it doesn't exist, but it's an extra paid option.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

On my main bank I don't have to pay extra for it, but it doesn't always work

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

For my bank, instant is free but requires the receiver to also have instant sepa support.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

We're talking about payments across different countries. Inside each country payments have been instant for a while

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Not in Germany, at least not when using different banks.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Most banks have an instant payment option that comes with a fee.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Which is a fucking insult. The moment i pay anything with a debit card the payment is already noted in my account, just the formal transfer of the money hasn't happened yet. But both banks already know the transaction and they know that they will do the transaction, everything is there already. But they just didn't do the switch.

It is like you would go to an airport, have your luggaged checked in, go through the security, board the plane and everything is ready. Also the starting lane is empty. But the flight will wait until the next day, because thats how it has been done since the days of olde.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Then I would suggest switching. Even my Sparkasse which charges for everything through the nose doesn't charge anything for SEPA Instant Payments

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

In Ireland, this is already a thing between two people who have an account with the same bank.

Online banks like Revolut and N26 tend to be instant between each other too.

Would be nice to have this between all banks in the EU though.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I'm pretty sure Dutch banks already have this with eachother, but it would be great to loop my German friend in too

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

The EU's payments company bought iDeal, that Dutch service you are mentioning. They're rolling it out EU-wide.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

In Poland there is BLIK, it's well integrated, you can use it anywhere, you can pay, you can transfer, you can request, and it's free.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Sweden has Swish. Instant transfers, you can pay with it in some stores and you can request money from others. All you need is a phone number and a bank account.

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