The end of the accounting search

Posted May 15, 2023 9:18 UTC (Mon) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183)
In reply to: The end of the accounting search by Wol
Parent article: The end of the accounting search

> But the Eurocheque (or rather its rationale) disappeared with the Single European Currency. Surely national cheques carried on? They were talking about scrapping UK cheques, but the concern about people outside the digital system meant they soldier on. However, cheque guarantee cards disappeared a long while ago.

Cheques were already dying/nearly dead, the rise of electronic transactions (credit/debit cards) in the 90's did that. With the transition to the Euro everything needed to be redesigned anyway so it was a good moment to stop with Eurocheques. You could cash international cheques for a while, but that's stopped too (which is annoying when some UK/US company decides to send you a cheque for some reason e.g. dividends, there's literally no way to cash it).

There was an alternative in NL: the acceptgiro. Which is essentially a paper transaction request. The difference with cheques is that you send the acceptgiro to your own bank rather than send it to the receiver who sends it to their bank who sends it to your bank. The clearance time of acceptgiros is much shorter and the risk for the bank is zero.

Since 2020/2021 banks have stopped accepting acceptgiros as well, basically due to lack of usage. However, because it's just a transaction request, older users can just scan them with their bank app and approve the transaction that way. This is mostly used by organisations who are looking for donations.

My understanding is that cheques are still popular in the US because electronic transfers between banks are difficult and not standardised, whereas the Federal Reserve offers cheap cheque handling. In SEPA transactions are few seconds anywhere and once you're used to it it feels positively ancient to wait for money. When you're at a restaurant with friends you've already got their part of the bill on your account before you've paid the restaurant.

The end of the accounting search

Posted May 15, 2023 10:17 UTC (Mon) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (1 responses)

SEPA Instant is not universal. In some countries it seems like all the banks are SEPA Instant enabled (e.g. Germany and Nederland, perhaps?). In other countries, with stagnant and stultified banking markets, very few are - e.g. Ireland (I don't know of any retail banks in Ireland that have SEPA Instant!).

Even plain old SEPA still seems better than the US situation. SEPA is at least meant to clear within one working day.

The US seems to vary a lot. Wire transfers in the USA can be anything between instant to days. While ACH seems generally to be a working day. ???

The end of the accounting search

Posted May 16, 2023 1:42 UTC (Tue) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]

> While ACH seems generally to be a working day. ???

For transactions less than $5000 it's 1 working day. For anything else, it's _three_ business days.

There are plans to move to instant ACH transactions, but banks are dragging their feet because they like being able to charge fees for "instant" wire transfers (the largest banks in the US settle wire transfers within minutes).