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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

Direct account-to-account transfer is supported between all major EU banks. It takes a couple of seconds at most, and it's free.

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Are they irreversible?

I've always bought and sold vehicles (or anything private sale) in cash in Canada because I am extremely leery of reversible payment methods where the payment account owner can claim 'fraud' and I'm out the item and the money.

Craigslist and Kijiji (the most popular online classifieds platforms) explicitly warn people to deal only in cash because of this problem.

They are irreversible as soon as they show up in the receiving account.

If you mean SEPA instant credit transfers I think they are available only in some countries and they are not free in my experience.

It depends on the country. Within the EU, SEPA transfers must be no more expensive than the equivalent domestic payment. At least in Sweden, this means that SEPA transfers are free.

This rule is new though, it went into effect in December: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELE...

> Charges levied by a payment service provider on a payment service user in respect of cross-border payments in euro shall be the same as the charges levied by that payment service provider for corresponding national payments of the same value in the national currency of the Member State in which the payment service provider of the payment service user is located.

FWIW, I did a SEPA instant payment last Thursday between German checking accounts. I was billed 0.24€ by my bank.

SEPA instant transfers do typically cost around 1 euro in Spain and France, for example. Also for domestic transfers, so I’m not sure that regulation will have an effect.

In my country bank to bank transfers are free and instant.

It's extremely convenient to be able to pay anyone any amount at any time with nothing more than your phone.

Sounds like a good way to get mugged with violence.. "Transfer me all of your bank account, right now !!" (To an account opened using fake ids of course)

People with fake IDs are not going to engage in mugging. If you plan out your crimes so much that you have fake IDs ready, it's way safer and more profitable to do some scamming or fraud scheme instead.

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