Hacker News Reader

Comment by seekingcharlie | Hacker News Reader

This still astounds me.

I'm Australian but also hold a US account. The difference in ease between the two is insane. I cannot believe how difficult it is to simply wire money from a US bank account. In Australia, you can make a free transfer entirely from web/app and it will be received, often the next day.

It's no wonder why Paypal/Venmo are so huge in the US...

View on HN

Not only that, in Australia to pay rent you can just set up BPay or an automated transfers. You can also wire your deposit to most landlords.

In the US they want cheques and money orders. It's insane.

FYI the Australian Payments Clearing Association is building a new payments platform to enable instant transfers and is expected to be operational by the second half of 2017:

http://www.apca.com.au/about-payments/future-of-payments/new...

In NZ it is immediate if same bank, 10pm that night if different. That few hours though can be nice if you change your mind.

On my New Zealand business account we can see transactions turn up every hour - that's how often they are cleared between the major banks. And my personal credit card balance on my mobile app changes seconds after I make a purchase.

"In Australia, you can make a free transfer entirely from web/app and it will be received, often the next day."

In the UK or China, it's minutes/hours, as long as you do the transfer before a certain time.

Sorry, should edit that - it's immediate for us in Australia if you have transferred to a certain person before OR if you use the same bank.

It's the next day for external banks / people that you haven't transferred to before.

And I believe the big four banks are working on increasing that to four clearances per day.

"It's the next day for external banks / people that you haven't transferred to before."

OK - so you're still a touch behind the UK and China ;)

Agreed. Still miles ahead of the US! ;)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com