Well not exactly. I have set up ACH transfer between my dad and my account, but a couple of banks didn't let me. They are like both account holder should be the same. Bank told me that the only option I have is to wire the money.
On the other hand, I pay my employees through ACH (ADP take cares of it).
In the US if you want a fee-free transfer, you need to use your bank's app and take a photo of someone's check. And no, Paypal/Vinmo are not good alternatives. They're private transfer systems that are not federally mandated and regulated bank-to-bank transfers. I wrote a full post about this:
http://penguindreams.org/blog/the-american-banking-system-is...
It'd be more like the Federal Reserve enforcing free customer-to-customer ACH for everyone. There are some banks that do offer free person-to-person ACH (I believe 5/3 is one of them).
Zelle is basically the banks getting together and going around that critical lack of infrastructure. It does look like they have a lot of major and minor banks. Mine is still missing from the list though, and I suspect it will be years until everyone is supported or banks will feel they need to support it to enter the market. So no, the US is still way behind.
not only is there an ODFI-clearing house - RDFI delay caused by the actual "clearing" process - the whole flow starting from the merchant->payment processor step is a sequence of nightly batches with cutoff times factored in to boot.
from the merchant perspective, however, ACH payment is cheaper to process than a credit card payment and is way less likely to end up in a chargeback.
which is why you can use debit cards in most situations where you would use a credit card where instant check of funds availability and hold is required - e.g. hotel incidentals etc.
Often banks and credit unions will limit ACH origination to debits (pulls) in digital banking applications for risk and business reasons.
You are right that ACH (and most payment schemes in the US) have substantial deficiencies in terms of security, but that is counteracted with a strong justice system and consumer laws. You shouldn't really fear about someone emptying your bank account (unless you are a business) because Regulation E mandates that banks and credit unions make you whole for any fraudulent transaction reported within 60 days of the statement that includes the relevant transaction(s).
ACH(EFTS in EU) in the US is generally free, but has a delay for clearing and has some mechanisms for reversal. This is primarily a digital check, and can be initiated by the receiver in that way.
A wire transfer is nearly immediate by comparison and offers almost no option for reversal. This option does usually have a fee and is generally reserved for large purchase transfers and emergency situations were verification of receipt is required. Such as buying a house. These transfers are processed via Fedwire inside the US and SWIFT out.
The guideline in the EU is that interstate can not cost more than intrastate, so most went to 0.