Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2011 April 24

= April 24 =

Electronic banking
Can anyone explain why electronic payments/deposits/etc aren't faster? If I pay for something with my debit card, it takes at least a day for the money to be withdrawn from my account. Longer on weekends. If I pay a bill through my bank's e-pay, it again takes days to show as an actual withdrawal. For instance, I confirmed a payment on Friday and, although it shows on the bill pay page as being done on the 22nd, the money is still not out of my account and won't be until Monday. Why aren't these things more instant? Dismas |(talk) 12:19, 24 April 2011 (UTC)


 * It's all a question of minimising costs. The technology is available to transfer funds electronically in much shorter timescales. Large inter-bank transactions are settled intra-day, and similar facilities are availale to retail customers if required - Western Union's "Money in Minutes" service is an example. However, processing and reconciling each payment message still has operational costs even though they are electronic. Therefore retail payments that are not time-critical are usually settled overnight because this allows lots of small transactions to be bulked up into a smaller number of inter-bank payments, thus reducing clearing costs. So the debit to your account does not appear until the beginning of the next business day - and, on a Friday, the next business day is the following Monday. Gandalf61 (talk) 12:49, 24 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Originally, things had to be physically sent between banks, which caused delays. Banks are only just starting to make use of the fact that things can be done much faster now that it is all electronic. The UK has recently started using the Faster Payments Service, which allows transfers between banks in a matter of minutes rather than the 3 working days it used to take. --Tango (talk) 13:47, 24 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I suppose it depends on the bank. My transactions through debit show up instantly. Mingmingla (talk) 15:26, 24 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Banks make money holding your money. When your money is "in transit" for three days, that's three days' worth of overnight interest that goes into a bank's pocket. While your transfer amounts to a pittance, in aggregate we get billions annually. There are countries where transfers happen quickly, while the United States in particular has some notoriety in resisting modernization. 88.112.59.31 (talk) 16:50, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
 * While there is some truth in that, it isn't the full three days worth of interest they get. They only get the interest earned between the money leaving one account and arriving in the other. There is a delay before the money leaves the first account, and the sending still earnings interest during that time. Also, I think start earning interest on money received before it has been "cleared". (It's also worth pointing out that current accounts don't generally pay much interest.) --Tango (talk) 17:56, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I know that banks and systems vary, but when I make electronic payments in the UK, the money disappears from my account within seconds and usually appears in the recipients' accounts within two hours. Are American banks slower on average?    D b f i r s   19:41, 24 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I work "near" (meaning, not quite "in") the industry, and can offer a couple of suggestions -- which may or may not apply to your specific case. This is admittedly US-centric.
 * Most interbank transfers actually run overnight, and only on business days. Daytime transfers cost extra, and are reserved for really urgent transactions.
 * In the specific case you mention, last Friday was a bank holiday in some areas. Transactions submitted that day will probably not clear until Monday.  If Easter Monday is also a holiday where you are, then Tuesday.
 * Yes, it is made to look as if the money "disappears" from your account instantly, but that's largely a trick -- it's the easiest way to "lock" the money, prevent it from being spent twice, without inventing another type of transaction. I'm sure it still doesn't move until overnight.
 * DaHorsesMouth (talk) 01:11, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

It also depends on what you are doing... Sending an electronic payment should leave instantly, depending on your bank's security checks (the larger/more unusual your payment the more likely security checks are needed, and therefore the longer it will take to leave... A plain simple Bill Payment usually leaves instantly, as they tend to be smaller, to easily verifiable account details (can only be sent to same country), whereas an international payment can be of an unlimited amount, to account details which may look nothing like that country's account details, and thus requires further checks before being released... Debit Card transactions on the other hand take as long to debit as it takes the retailer to submit their banking to their bank, which is normally done at the end of their working day, and processed by their bank the following day. Hypothetically if the retailer never processed their card payments, the card payment could never be taken from your account - but that never happens! Hope that helps... gaz hiley .co.uk 11:12, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Ransom and other evil-doings...
Let me hijack this question with a related tangent. In the movies / TV / etc., it is often the case that the evil-doer demands someone transfer $X million dollars into an untraceable overseas account or something terrible will happen. A common example is kidnappers making ransom demands, but other examples also occur. Often we are shown the transfer being made and the evil-doer checking their account to see that that funds are received. Presumably the bad guy wouldn't want to relinquish his evil plans until he can be absolutely sure the money is in his account. However, as the original poster suggests, most transactions seem to take at least one (if not several) days to complete. So, if I were walk into my bank and tell them I wanted to transfer all of my money to an overseas account as soon as possible, how long would the transaction really take? Could they get it done immediately for an additional fee? Or is such a transaction always going to take at least a day to show up in the recipient's account? Dragons flight (talk) 12:10, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I suspect in most countries the answer is yes (I think someone already mentioned it is in the US). In fact I suspect in many cases it may not even be possible to transfer such large sums of money the slow way. Definitely in Malaysia I know there was a limit on GIRO transactions which I can't remember what (possibly RM250000) but was well under 1 million ringgit. RENTAS is used instead for large transfers which is a form of Real Time Gross Settlement‎ (the article has a list of RTGS for different countries). Of course most kidnappers in movies use Swiss or Carribean bank accounts anyway I think but I think it's likely international transfers can also have some sort of real-time or otherwise fast transfers. Nil Einne (talk) 16:23, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Our wire transfer article may be helpful to you. Essentially, some wire transfers provide immediate availability of funds, while others do not.
 * In real life, I don't think that the scenario you describe would work. The idea is to send the money through a dizzying and untraceable sequence of transfers, so that authorities can neither recover the money nor use it to trace and apprehend the recipient.  This can work, if there is a lag time between initiating the transfers and the authorities' efforts to trace them.  But in the scenario you describe, there just isn't time for very many transfers to be completed before authorities begin seeking to trace and recover them.  John M Baker (talk) 20:37, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
 * As described above, for certain amounts of money (and fees, I'm sure) one can move large amounts of money immediately. The best bet would be to transfer the money to banks in several different countries - The authorities will trace them, of course; however, you could have the money long before they found you. The transfers can be instant - However, the paperwork and diplomatics required to retrieve information on a bank account from another country isn't, and that would be multiplied by however many countries that money travels through. By the time the find the final account, you can be living the high life in Rio De Janeiro. 718smiley.svg Avic ennasis  @ 16:12, 24 Nisan 5771 / 28 April 2011 (UTC)

I would also like to add her that in response to your question, I would like to use part of that same question to answer it - "In the movies / TV " - lots of things happen in the movies / TV that aren't true... gaz hiley .co.uk 11:55, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

1961 BEL AIR FACTORY 409 4 SPD BUBLE TOP
HOW CAN I FIND PRODUCTION NUMBERS FOR MY 1961 BEL AIR BUBBLE TOP WITH 409 AND 4SPD. THIS CAR HAS BODY SIDE MOLDING DELETE PKG. ANY INFO OR HELP APERICATED. THANKS GENE  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.40.27.192 (talk) 12:35, 24 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I think Chevrolet by the Numbers 1960-64, gives the breakdown (V6 -V8 etc) .http://www.amazon.com/Corvette-Numbers-Alan-Colvin/dp/0837602882 If you need spares it should come in use at some time – or until you can afford a newer car ;-) --Aspro (talk) 06:46, 25 April 2011 (UTC)