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627 points cratermoon | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.941s | source
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dalemhurley ◴[] No.44462040[source]
> "live in some futuristic utopia like the EU where banks consider "send money to people" to be core functionality. But here in the good ol' U S of A, where material progress requires significant amounts of kicking and screaming, you had PayPal."

I remember when PayPal came to Australia, I was so confused by it as I could just send money via internet banking. Then they tried to lobby the government to make our banking system worse so they could compete, much like Uber.

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zpeti ◴[] No.44462157[source]
I don't get this sentence. It's pretty damn hard sending money in the EU too. We only had SWIFT and CHAPS too like in the USA. The EU isn't some banking haven with ultrafast transfers. If they are talking about the new legislation about fast transfers (SEPA), that came 1 decade after paypal.
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dofubej ◴[] No.44462261[source]
We currently (as in the for the last months) have instant transfers but for the longest time we didn’t and had to use PayPal as well if we wanted to send somebody money instantly without paying the bank an extra for it. I’m confused as to what the article means. It’s possible the author is misinformed.
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quonn ◴[] No.44462369[source]
Instant transfers have been available for many years. they were not free, but most banks supported doing them.
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1. lotsofpulp ◴[] No.44464313[source]
In the US, I have been sending money electronically for free, and instantly, to my friends and family for almost 15 years.

Zelle, previously known as clearXchange, and whatever else, but if you had an account at one of the bigger bank, it has long been trivial to send money to each other.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zelle

> In April 2011, the clearXchange service was launched. It was originally owned and operated by Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo.[6][7] The service offered person-to-person (P2P), business-to-consumer (B2C), and government-to-consumer (G2C) payments.[8]