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Comment by beobab | Hacker News Reader

Barclays and Natwest in the UK will allow you to send money to anyone with an email address. Can't speak for other banks, though.

But all banks will transfer money if you have a recipient account number and sort code.

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And it's quick. I can send money between two different UK bank accounts, using sort code and account number, and it appears in the recipient's account within about half an hour.

In Europe (Germany and Austria from my experience), many online services specifically support bank transfers using an IBAN number. It does seem to take a little longer though for the money to process.

I live in a developing country (some call it third world) and we've had this capability for many years. I can pay from my computer, mobile, or at an ATM. How is the US so far behind the rest of the developed and developing world?

They only just got chip and pin cards, while everyone else is moving to contactless payments.

A lot of US banks have actually opted for chip and signature instead of chip and pin...

Which is almost pointless, I never had a signature checked against a card when they were widely used here. A PIN is always checked.

Germany is pretty bad in banks to be honest. Transfers can take a whole day even between my own accounts and no way of seeing any movements during the weekend, incredibly old school.

See, the point is that you're saying 'in the UK'. We've been struggling to find a payment solution that works globally and sadly PayPal is the best we have found that covers a lot of countries.

Barclays and Natwest in the UK will allow you to send money to anyone with an email address.

Anyone? Anyone in the UK? Or anyone in the UK with a Barclays or Natwest account? Paypal is still probably the quickest and easiest way to send money to 'anyone' in the world.

Barclays: Anyone in their 30 country list (PingIt is the app)

According to the PingIt website you can only send money internationally if you know the recipients IBAN number and transfers takes up to two working days. So it sounds like it is just an app front end to bog standard old school international bank transfers.

PayPal just seems like extra steps if your bank lets you do a straight transfer.

International bank transfers (at least to/from outside of Europe) are a massive pain, can take many days to clear and often cost quite a bit more than what PayPal charges.

I've just done a bank transfer from Poland to UK and the money was in my Barclays account in 15 minutes. Just a couple years ago it used to take 3-4 days but now it's as quick as sending money locally.

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