My first hand experience (2017) is that US banking oferring (from a european guy perspective) is a eyes opening experience.
* There is no instant bank wires (free ones) between major banks. Or at least the same days ones, working reliably through most of banks.
* You get paper checks from your bank :)))))
* Small business (sold a car, got a return from landlord) give you money on checks, also accept only paper checks if you need to pay them on the spot (in the office).
* your bank charges you a monthly fee, to protect you from overdraft (wtf is this on debit account??), he shall block from happening at the begining - we call it "protection racket" in Italy.
* boa/citi and others have websites with design from 2005, not to mention mobile apps..
* you can't send money from bank account to a different bank to your unsophisticated friend (plumber, maid, or mr sandwich) just knowing his phone.
* when you withdraw money from coinbase to your connected US bank account, you pay 1,5% of face value. WHAT? PERCENTAGE FEE? This is USA banking thing, as the very same coinbase, charges fixed 0.15 EUR fee per no matter how big wire if you're european.
* major us banks got two factor just two years ago in terms of security.
* tap to pay (we call it paypass) is also almost 10 years after europe.
* first chip card in citi was offered to me in 2015 or 2016? Still magnetic (easily copied) card is used in majority of points in the USA
etc..
Some of them are chaning in the last two years, but mostly for sophisticated customers, small banks, and people not being able to use those features between different banks. It will still take a lot of time to catch up with a Kenya from Africa...
Banks in the USA do not allow deposits into accounts without account holder permission. They won't let you stop by a branch and deposit into a friend's account (to pay them back) without a formal arrangement, so it's easier just to find your unsophisticated friend and give them cash directly. I'm not sure if this is due to a law, or our culture of security theater.
This is not (universally) true. I've had many friends/family deposit checks for me at my local branch when I'm out of town/on vacation/whatever. I've done it myself for other people. I believe the banks in question were Wells Fargo and US Bank.
YMMV based on bank, but there is no regulation preventing this.
The reasoning presented was a little suspicious - they envisioned someone "forcing" you to unwillingly take a loan (of like $100) by depositing it into your account. Then they would demand their $100 back and use this as leverage to blackmail or otherwise disrupt your life.
But I don't totally disagree. To me, depositing money into another person's bank feels...improper - like performing an oil change on someone else's car, or taking someone else's books back to the library, or walking into your neighbor's unlocked house to lock all the doors. There are very good reasons someone would want these done for them, and also edge cases where these would cause an issue for the other person. It's a moral grey area to me.
Definitely not the case in many (most?) banks. I've done this multiple times and never been turned down.
...But if you were beaten and robbed on your way to the bank, that check would be worthless to the thief. If your bank went insolvent, the FDIC would cover your $60k. What happened to depositors when Mt. Gox went belly up? What happens when that same thief hacks your wallet instead? There are many positives to our current banking system which you seem to be dismissing. Namely accountability. Perhaps once these things are well regulated and backed by legitimate business it will see mainstream use. But crypto is literally nothing but a speculative game and means for laundering money at the moment.
Here in Europe I can make a payment to any other EUR bank account in Europe, for free and it’ll usually arrive the same or next day. All I need is the recipients bank account number, and to enter that and the amount on my online banking - I don’t need to go and see anyone or fax anything over.
Recently a new initiative was launched where (between participating banks) you can transfer up to €15,000 in a maximum of 10 seconds:
https://www.europeanpaymentscouncil.eu/what-we-do/sepa-insta...
If we're talking about other currencies, you have a good point. I think lumen (XLM) is the best right now, ~$0.0000015 fee, ~3 second average right now
Transfers are free and fast here in the UK.
You conveniently skipped over how much it cost in fees to transfer that much. I'd wager it was significantly more than $7.50.
Sure, but if someone scoops your crypto coins, or you leave them in an exchange that's hacked, you basically have no way to get it back.
This is trading a serious amount of security granted to us by world governments for convenience. It also increases your cognitive load of handling your crypto safely.
That bank sounds terrible, and it can vary from branch-to-branch which is frustrating.
People do certified checks whenever they buy a house, a car or transfer significant money from one institution to another.
And don't get me started on sending money to family members overseas!
During that same time I transferred 15k$ from one crypto-wallet to another. It took 10 minutes all told.
Sure there are lots of people who are buying crypto because they think they'll make loads of money but a significant portion of us are in it because we dislike the infantilizing ways the current banks hold us hostage.