I’ve worked for multiple different financial institutions. I’ve been on the banker side and the consumer side of the industry and I can assure you banks absolutely do have the ability to send your money back instantly.
While there are certain federal and international laws that could impact transfer times, this is rare and not something your average Joe would run into.
Most banks want to hold onto your money for as long as possible because that’s how they earn their money. And banks aren’t the only ones who do this. Companies will hold out on issuing refunds for the same reason.
It’s sort of the perfect way to show the penny savings example I guess. Because yeah, the interested earned is pennies, but when you have a million pennies earning another million pennies… it adds up.
[EDITED: to changed an autocorrect from warned to earned]
I can assure you banks absolutely do have the ability to send your money back instantly.
USAA does this for certain refunds, but they take on a bit of risk to do so. They make the funds available to spend before they’ve actually been settled
I deposited a large check once — nothing that would get the attention of the IRS or anything, other than that I’m normally poor — to a regular national bank. They held it for about two weeks to “verify” it, aka invest and profit off it, so I immediately went over to the local credit union (who doesn’t do shit like that) and opened an account there. Got a good chunk of it transferred with little-to-no fuss and closed out my bank account with a middle finger.
In Europe there’s a system called SEPA, which is a network that allows instant transfer of funds. Right now, by law, banks are required to allow consumers to use SEPA at the same conditions as the regular old bank transfer, which means I could send you money right now for free and you could receive it instantly anywhere in the EU.
The technology exists. Banks just have no incentive on implementing it
I’ve worked for multiple different financial institutions. I’ve been on the banker side and the consumer side of the industry and I can assure you banks absolutely do have the ability to send your money back instantly.
While there are certain federal and international laws that could impact transfer times, this is rare and not something your average Joe would run into.
Most banks want to hold onto your money for as long as possible because that’s how they earn their money. And banks aren’t the only ones who do this. Companies will hold out on issuing refunds for the same reason.
It’s sort of the perfect way to show the penny savings example I guess. Because yeah, the interested earned is pennies, but when you have a million pennies earning another million pennies… it adds up.
[EDITED: to changed an autocorrect from warned to earned]
USAA does this for certain refunds, but they take on a bit of risk to do so. They make the funds available to spend before they’ve actually been settled
That’s interesting, I’m not familiar with their practices specifically but that is interesting!
I deposited a large check once — nothing that would get the attention of the IRS or anything, other than that I’m normally poor — to a regular national bank. They held it for about two weeks to “verify” it, aka invest and profit off it, so I immediately went over to the local credit union (who doesn’t do shit like that) and opened an account there. Got a good chunk of it transferred with little-to-no fuss and closed out my bank account with a middle finger.
In Europe there’s a system called SEPA, which is a network that allows instant transfer of funds. Right now, by law, banks are required to allow consumers to use SEPA at the same conditions as the regular old bank transfer, which means I could send you money right now for free and you could receive it instantly anywhere in the EU.
The technology exists. Banks just have no incentive on implementing it
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