Bank transfer. No fees, fast enough (at least inside a country next business day, I think internationally it's allowed to be a bit slower?), if you want to do it mobile there are enough banks that have apps.
I can do bank transfers from my bank, but I feel awkward saying, "hey, can I get your routing and account number?" Even if I didn't feel awkward, with Venmo and Square Cash, I have all the information I need if either we're FB friends or have their email address.
Well it's not more awkward that the initial "can I have your phone number" or "can I add you on Facebook". You only do it once when you need it and never again.
Also, there's plenty of alternatives, bank transfers are usually the last resort. There's Revolut, Monzo, Ping It...
For sure. But almost everyone I know has one or the other, if not both. That kennitala system sounds really cool, especially if people are conditioned to pass around their account number.
I just found that when I would try to send electronic checks here, people got weird about handing over their routing and account numbers. Sometimes I would even say, "You know, the numbers that are on every check you've ever issued." Didn't matter, there was still some weirdness about it.
That's definitely part of why I like Venmo and Square Cash. It's much closer to a unilateral transaction.
>That kennitala system sounds really cool, especially if people are conditioned to pass around their account number.
>I just found that when I would try to send electronic checks here, people got weird about handing over their routing and account numbers.
I think that uncertainty is definitely part of the problem. The criticality of keeping an SSN secret whilst paradoxically sometimes having to have it on hand to give to specific authorized people seems like a recipe for paranoia.
The honest truth is I don't know if US bank account numbers need to be kept secret. I would hope not, but I also wouldn't be that surprised if someone told me they did. I can understand people taking a defensive stance, but the fact that there is space for services like Venmo to exist is a direct sign that US banks are dropping the ball. Sending money between eachother more easily than using cash is practically the reason banks were invented (although certainly not the reason they are so big right now[1]).
That wouldn't bother me so much, except we've already been down this path. Paypal has rubbed it's name into the dirt by using it's position as an unregulated psudobank to "hold funds for investigation" and gather the interest, or to unilaterally close accounts and thus implicitly seize the funds within.
The idea of a vendor-locked payment system taking root really sits ill with me. It could cause major problems with paying rent or receiving wages for people who don't, won't or can't use compatible smartphones.
I don't know if US bank account numbers need to be kept secret.
Yeah, they kind of should be since the number is basically all that someone needs in order to print cheques that take money out of a given account. The US has a "pull" system instead of the more secure "push" system in Europe where giving out a bank account number is totally normal (and was back in the day before electronic banking too).
The EU now has a pull system too, thanks to SEPA Direct Debits. The receiver only has to send an XML file to the bank claiming that the client signed a mandate authorizing them. The client does have 13 months to make a claim and get the money back, but it means that one has to carefully read the statements, rather than trust that every transaction was initiated by us.
Not an issue here (at least not in my circles, I couldn't even name any app like Venmo that's available here. Maybe Paypal has features like that by now, I see advertisements from them occasionally, but it never has come up, so I guess figuring out what apps the others use would be more hassle)
