In Europe, I can send a “wire transfer” bank to bank within the Euro zone, across national boundaries, and that’s to nineteen different countries (Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain) with no fees whatsoever.
What gives within the USA, one united country and high fees??
US banks are rubbish.
most US banks now have a system within online banking that allows transfers to another bank for free.
Wiki has a good explanation of the different ways to transfer money among banks.
It uses terms and concepts that require some banking background to fully appreciate.
The difference between a teller-originated ‘wire transfer’ and an online one is security and finality.
Unless you are a banker, the different types of settlement will mean little to you.
In Thailand it’s easy to send money from an account in Bank A to an account in Bank B using an ATM machine[sup]*[/sup] (as long as it’s an ATM machine for Bank A or B). The fee is about $1, or slightly less for small transfers. The service is available 24 hours/day, 7 days/week. Such transfers are subject to a daily maximum of about $1500 to $15,000 depending on the class of debit card.
I’ve never seen a check issued in Thailand (except cashier’s checks or bank drafts for very large purchases). Many people use the simple ATM transfers just described, take a photo of the ATM receipt with their phone, and e-mail or message the photo to the recipient. Simple, straightforward, effective. I’d hardly ever need to visit an actual bank except that the U.S. government will not direct deposit SocSec into bank accounts with ATM cards attached.
(Many large businesses or agencies here do not receive money this way. For those, cash payments can be made at any post office or 7-Eleven.)
Contrast this with the “service” at U.S. retail banks. The last dealing I had with a U.S. retail bank was in the early 1990’s; I wanted to transfer retirement accounts from one bank to another. Two weeks later the branch manager called me, apologized: they were understaffed, not wanting tellers to work enough hours for benefits, and couldn’t complete the simple transfer. :smack:
How useful is a comparison of your experience with a US retail bank in at best 1999 to your experience with a Thai bank in 2015? Do you think perhaps things have changed in sixteen (or more years)?
If you are talking about something other than a transfer to linked accounts in one’s own name, which I do have for free, then can you explain more about transfers to third parties without fees? Perhaps I was not clear. Thanks
Popmoney. It might not be free at every bank, but it is at mine (Citibank) and the fee for using the Popmoney website for the transfer rather than your bank’s online banking system is something like 95 cents.
And that’s in addition to electonic bill payment through online banking , which is sometimes a papercheck mailed by the bank but is will be an electronic transfer if you’re paying an utility bill or a credit card.
Are paper checks still widely used in the U.S.?
Yes, still quite widely, but not nearly as many as there used to be. For example, I pay most bills electronically nowadays but will still write a check once in a while. Just today I wrote a check for my annual car registration. The government doesn’t take credit or debit cards.
My dad has an account at Chase; I have an account at BofA. He can send me money electronically by sending me an email. There was some setup involved but now it’s simple.
Although they still lag behind, U.S. banks have got a lot better about this in recent years.
Interesting. I believe the last time I actually held a paper check in my hands must have been in the late 1990s.
Well, it was worth starting this thread to learn about Popmoney.
Just to clarify, the government here will be state specific. I am not sure which state suranyi lives in, but here in Washington they accept credit and debit cards just fine.
Illinois accepts credit cards for things like car registrations, for a fee.
So I write a check.
Note that Popmoney is one of several companies in the same business. Popmoney is used by Citibank, U.S. Bank and others, while clearXchange, for example, is used by Bank of America, Chase, Wells Fargo and others. Other banks might have other options. My point is that if you’re looking to move money between accounts (even to someone else’s account) and not specifically to do a wire transfer, there are options today.
I use popmoney as well. It’s tied into my online banking and bill pay system.
some state governments make you pay the extra 3% if you use a credit or debit card.
The branch manager did not tell you anything of the sort.
And this can be strangely specific as well - some government entities in my state/city pass on the processing fee if you pay by debit or credit card but have no fee for an electronic check. So even though technically my payment is by check and it’s processed through the check processing system, I’m still not writing a paper check. There are a very few payments I make by check (I rent a garage from my neighbor and pay him by check) but most of the checks I write are put into cards into cards ( birthday,graduation and wedding gifts).
I’m assuming that you don’t believe the manager made such a statement because it was pre- ACA - but even in the 80s and 90s it was common for businesses that employed both full and part-time staff ( banks, retail stores, etc) to provide various benefits ( everything from health insurance to vacation or sick days) only to those employees who regularly worked more than a specified number of hours per week, so that full-time tellers/cashiers working 35-40 hours a week got benefits but those working 15-20 hours a week did not.