When I transfer money it is instantly debited from my account, but it can take up to 4 days to be credited to the account of the recipient. Where is the money for that period and why can it not be credited instantly?
Welcome to the SDMB, big bear. We put different kinds of conversations in different forums – this one will do best in our General Questions forum, which is where we put questions with factual answers. I’ll move it there for you.
It may be helpful to you to spend a few minutes reading our forum descriptions.
twickster, moderator
My WAG is that it’s wherever your bank keeps money that is waiting to be transferred, probably making them some amount of money, and that it probably could be credited instantly, if the banks were overly bothered about it and it wouldn’t cost them to do it.
Although again, WAG, they aren’t, and it would, so they don’t.
The thing about banks is they may try to give the impression that they are merely providing a service, but they are only there to make money for themselves by playing around with other peoples.
This is an excellent question. It must depend on the bank’s policy. When my student loan payments came out of the old Washington Mutual, the money would disappear and be credited to my loans 24 hours later. Now it happens on the same day. Likewise, my credit union used to credit and debit inter-account transfers immediately. Now credits take 24 hours but debits still occur immediately. Other than the panic when several hundred dollars disappears, who is making money on the float?
Thai banks are notorious for this. Or at least used to be, as I’m not sure about nowadays. But in the past, transfers from abroad took about a week to show up in your account. The banks were just hanging onto it and collecting the interest.