It's incredibly easy to transfer money. I and all my friends use Venmo. Settling the tab, paying rent, utilities, in a few seconds. It works extremely well for me.
Venmo (and paypal and friends) are just little proprietary walled gardens, and if you want to exit the walled garden, you have to go through ACH. More rent-seeking walled gardens -- who only exist because the default payment infrastructure in the US is slow obsolete shit -- is not a solution to this, better infrastructure (like UK's Faster Payments) is the solution.
In China with Alipay, I receive transfers instantly and deposits to my bank account "can take up to 2 hours", but typically land within 5 minutes. I get instant WeChat notifications whenever my card is used. Although, to be honest I haven't used a physical card in months. I pay for everything with QR codes. There's a code you can present to the attendant and they scan you (typically faster) and then I authenticate the transfer with a fingerprint or pin. It's honestly astounding to see how advanced the financial system is here, ESPECIALLY when compared to the bullshit that currently exists in the US.
In practice this isn't an issue. Money is immediately withdrawn and I transfer the floating balance back to my bank account every week or so. There are few situations where I want the money in my account immediately.
