Since November EU regulation mandates that SEPA transfers should finish within 10 seconds[0]. In practice we're not quite there yet since some smaller regional banks have trouble moving from batch processing to streams, but their deadline extension ends june 2018.

[0] https://www.europeanpaymentscouncil.eu/sites/default/files/K...

It mandates that banks offer a 10-second-transaction but not that all transactions are that fast. For example, the only German bank currently supporting that charges a 0,50€ fee while regular (slower) transfers are free.

Huh, that's interesting. I remember transferring a few euros for shared pizza to a friend's account a few months back and it took a day. This was between two very large, modern Dutch banks.

>> Since November

> a few months back

:-)

And as the sibling post mentions, it's a new type of transaction. Regular money transfers have to clear on the next day.

Is it still that slow? Since a few months 95% of my transactions between Germany, the Netherlands and the UK (EUR account) happen the same day. It's not like banks actually can earn interest right now anyway. If anything it costs them to hold money currently.

It probably happens same day only if you send the transfer early in the morning.

Yes, I forgot to mention that the cutoff now seems to be at around 2pm for most banks (it was much earlier even recently). Transfers after that usually show up on the next day but the value date is often the sending date.

I don't do transactions after 6pm or so, therefore no experience that late. All of this only applies to banking days, no transactions get processed on the weekend.

Yeah, lately my international transfers (Germany -> UK -> South Africa) have been taking less than a day all in all if I send the money before noon.

In Sweden we can transfer money instantly between banks. You essentially register a service tied to your phone number, and people can use that phone number to instantly transfer money to persons or companies without any fees. The service is called Swish [0]. The only requirement is that the receiver has registered the service to his/hers phone number, and that you can authenticate yourself using mobile BankID [1].

[0] https://medium.com/@etiennebr/swish-the-secret-swedish-finte...

[1] https://www.bankid.com/en/

Edit: Clarification of who can receive your money transfer.

This sounds like the same as Vipps in Norway. Anything up to NOK5000 is free. And it is instant.

It has become a huge hit the last year. As for why I guess it's almost as fast as cash and you can add a little note so you can prove (rarely necessary but sometimes useful) that you paid.

Now a number of companies are also embracing it and I've started to receive invoices on Vipps. If it could be the thing that kills "Avtalegiro") I'd say that would be great.