7 ms·
Keep in mind though, this transaction was nearly instantaneous. Bank Wire transfers take 3-4 days to complete (at least, as far as I know with normal-person qua
by gorrillamcd 13y ago
Keep in mind though, this transaction was nearly instantaneous. Bank Wire transfers take 3-4 days to complete (at least, as far as I know with normal-person quantities of money). Instant international money transfer is amazing!
- gergles 13y agoNo, that's ACH. SWIFT (or even FedWire) transfers happen within a few minutes.
- csomar 13y agoMy experience tell me otherwise with both of them. It can take from a few days to a couple weeks.
- booyaa00 13y agoWhat country are you in? In the UK bank transfers happen within a couple of minutes. You can login to your bank, transfer money to someone elses bank, they'll login, and see the money.
- dprice1 13y agoMy guess is the previous commenter is in US. There's an excellent episode of the podcast "planet money" which addresses exactly this question, and which also explains why the system in the UK is much faster. http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/10/04/229224964/episode-489-the-invisible-plumbing-of-our-economy http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/10/04/229224964/episode-...
- csomar 13y agoNope. Third-world here. I don't think it'll take a couple weeks in the US.
- guan 13y agoFedwire and other real time gross settlement services (RTGS) are almost instantaneous. SWIFT transfers usually are not: SWIFT is a way to communicate messages about transfers between banks, but they would still need a way to do the actual settlement. This could be very fast in the case of two large banks in different countries: if you are a customer in bank A, which has a correspondent account with B, and the recipient is also a customer with bank B. Then bank A can use SWIFT to say “please transfer $1 trillion from our account to the recipient’s account”, and that could happen instantly. (It usually doesn’t.) But if the final recipient is actually a customer at bank C, then the money needs to get from B to C somehow. That could happen in the recipient country’s RTGS—Fedwire if it’s the United States—but it might also be slower, through ACH or an equivalent. One problem with fast transfers is that many banks don’t have straight through processing for RTGS. This means that the money can get instantly from bank A to bank B, but may not get posted to the recipient’s account with bank B until a clerk gets around to verifying and booking the transaction.
- JackFr 13y agoThe Fedwire transaction better be instantaneous -- interest on intraday overdrafts accrues by the minute. http://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/psr_policy.htm#daylightdef http://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/psr_policy.htm#...
- guan 13y agoOverdraft fees up to $150 are waived. Very generous of the Fed.
- acchow 13y ago> this transaction was nearly instantaneous Aren't Bitcoin transaction times generally in minutes?
- base698 13y agoNot exactly. To be sure it isn't a double spend it needs to be part of the block chain at least six down from the most recent block generated. Each extra block on top of the block where your transaction exists is a confirmation. For smaller purchases, ie not $150 million worth it's near instantaneous.
- cdash 13y agoYeah, I would bet that credit card fraud with chargebacks is probably more likely than the double spend scenario so it would make sense for a company just not care about verifying.
- jessedhillon 13y agoDon't BTC transactions take 10-30 minutes to settle?