I moved from the UK to France in 2018 (in part due to Brexit but that is a longer story) and dear god the banking systems here are utter shit.

I am with HSBC and I can't even change the PIN on my debit card! Hell I couldn't even get my card and cheque book (yes they still use cheques here!) delivered to my address as it was a temporary one so I had to collect it from my branch in person.

If I buy something on my card it takes at least three days before it is listed in the HSBC mobile app or web site.

I generally use cash so it isn't a huge issue for me (check my post history for some explanation on why I mostly use cash) but god is banking frustrating here.

The only positive is that I do have an actual account manager (as in the same person) who I always deal with and he is excellent at sorting my problem. I have to say I do like that consistent human content. Obviously if it is an emergency I use their emergency line (lost card, etc) but for general inquiries that don't require instant action my account manager is my go to.

(thank you for bringing this up I feel I needed this quick rant!)

That's actually the case for my HSBC UK account too. It's impossible to know accurately what the balance of it really is at any time too; both the real balance and the available balance fluctuate wildly with no obvious relation to the transactions, which are delayed by a variable 1-3 days (presumably depending on the type of transaction). They seem to be about ten years behind all the startup banks.

Instant update was the killer feature that swung me to Starling. Well, that and Natwest calling some random guy (who later found me to tell me what happened) for a sales call, only to give him the transaction data for my last five transactions....!

(obFD: no pecuniary interest, just a happy customer)

The "plus" that you mention, having a dedicated account guru can swing both ways: mine left my local branch for another branch 10km away, and I would not perform any significant operation without their presence.. which was no longer in the branch.

Boursorama or N26.

I use Boursorama Bank in France and they're pretty good. Setting up the a/c and transferring over from HSBC FR was relatively painless, though they dropped a few of the direct debit mandates that I had to recreate manually. I think the account is free as long as you actually use it actively.

The best way to do this in France seems to be to keep a "legacy" bank just for handling savings without a current account (that way you don't pay for current account, card etc.), and use one of the free challenger banks for current account, direct debits etc.

On another note, I had my ING Luxembourg account (6 figures on deposit) closed by them because, in their own words over the telephone, "I wasn't buying any of their products". They'd call me every few months trying to persuade me to invest in high charge, managed investment products, which I always declined. I explained that I was keeping the money on deposit to pay for my dad's Alzheimer care, but they just sent me a registered letter telling me to take my business elsewhere. I'm sure this breached some banking regulation, but I hadn't the energy to fight it.

Of course! Doing manual pickups with proper ID checks avoids a lot of problems.

My bank will only send stuff to my 'official' address that I have registered with the tax authorities. If I want a OTP-dongle or debit card in some other way, I can pick them up in a branch of my choosing.

I see this as being safe, not as being inflexible or old-fashioned.

I fully understand their need to protect against mail interception and fraud but I think there are better solutions than getting me to go all the way into the centre (about half an hour of my time each way on public transport) to pick up a cheque book is a little extreme.

Funny thing with the OTP generator. They posted that to us! FFS you can't make it up!

Needless to say, they are not the most efficient and are even less prone for innovation.

[0] https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/38041/umfrage...

Sparkassen failed at numerous attempts to come up with an online payment system that gets any traction and it took considerably longer for them to adopt apple pay.

I think it's also not good to paint commercial banks as one entity: There are old ones, large ones, cheap ones, upper-classy ones, spin-offs and startups. Sparkassen and co-ops are seldomly a startup e.g.. So depending on their clients and considering that SCT in DE has still low adoption amongst clients compared to direct debit mandates, a commercial bank or a startup may very rightfully choose to de-prioritize SCT adoption.

Of course they do. That's the normal, slow money transfer, aka "SEPA Credit Transfer". I suppose you mean SCT Inst?

Even of the bigger retail banks, Consors and ING do not offer SCT Inst.

> And most of them for free while most co-op/sparkassen charge a fee (some of them even for receiving an instant payment which is rediculous).

While it is included at Deutsche Bank proper, both Norisbank and Postbank charge between 0.50 and 1.00 EUR for outgoing SCT Inst, Commerzbank proper charges 1.50 EUR unless you are in one of their premium plans while comdirect (though technically not yet fully part of Commerzbank) is free, Hypovereinsbank is free for all non-business accounts except the cheapest ones, where it's 0.50 EUR.

So ... erm, no, not even close to "most of them for free"?

Also, on the other hand, there are co-op banks that offer free accounts with free SCT Inst nationally.

But who is charging for receiving SCT Inst payments? I hadn't heard of that before, that's indeed beyond ridiculous!

> Sparkassen failed at numerous attempts to come up with an online payment system that gets any traction and it took considerably longer for them to adopt apple pay.

And yet, they (all) implement SCT Inst!?

I think the main problem is that both co-ops and Sparkassen are very decentralized, you're looking at literally thousands of tiny and not-so-tiny-but-hardly-big banks that are all completely independant. That makes innovation very slow - of course they have pooled resources to have a somewhat centralized IT infrastructure, but the power to decide on innovations is ultimately still with the thousands of member banks.

The carmakers in Germany shut down various attempts to incentivize electronic cars and inquiries in their criminal behavior in the cheating scandals.

I think there is a fine line between lobbying and being downright criminal. I think most companies have actually crossed the line.

Deutsche Bahn after privatization let the train tracks in Hamburg rot for a long time. Now that they've passed the safety threshold they decided not to renew the tracks but instead move the train station somewhere else.

I've been involved in a government construction project and the way the contracts are handed out are on the surface to the highest bidder, but it's hard to call it anything but corrupt.

Lobbying is one thing, but threatening consultants and employees with repercussions and lawsuits for wanting to inform people about lies that led to these contracts is in fact criminal. I had a good lawyer, but nothing happened to the leadership on either side and nothing probably ever will.

Would you please elaborate? I have had quite a good experience with those banks.

The banking startups are collecting account holder information so they can turn around and upsell you on credit cards and other products.

But it gets better ...

There is no such thing as a startup bank in the US because the government doesn't grant bank charters anymore. All those new companies aren't banks at all. They piggyback on top of an existing bank or the ACH network.

That's why none of them say FDIC-approved, since they can't be part of FDIC.

Perhaps you meant something else?

[0]: https://www.fdic.gov/regulations/laws/bankdecisions/depins/i...

Is this true? Why is this the case? How long has it been like this?

Zelle: effectively instant, requires both banks to be on the network, free. Relatively new and many people who could use it don’t.

ACH: a few days, effectively ubiquitous, very small underlying charge infrequently marked up to ~$3 by the bank.

Wire transfers: not quite instant but close during banking hours, effectively ubiquitous by institution but often a pain for retail users to access due to risk profile, underlying cost is about $5 and often marked up to $15~$20.

The UX of the P2P payment apps is much, much better than any of the above, and would be what I’d reach for for a transfer in the $X0 range contingent on my counterparty being likely to use apps.

Banks in Europe: There might be a fee in some cases but I don't remember paying one (or it's <$5). Rent or similars are just recurring SEPA payments (it's a push - not a direct debt)

But can people (not business) initiate ACH transactions?

Yes. I used to do it to move money between checking accounts at different institutions. I don't think I've ever had an account that charged for ACH transfers. Meanwhile Zelle isn't supported by exactly one financial institution I use (but not one I use for banking).

https://www.mybanktracker.com/checking/faq/ach-transfer-fees...

As a side, in sites such as this (HN), especially when comparing things to the US there is defintitely a tendancy to make sweeping statements such as 'in the EU $thing is [blah]...' but actually there are huge differences across the continent, which I think is actually the news story here.

there are a couple tiers of paid wire transfers, but still no guarantees that you will have liquid settled cash in the same business day.

the mere concept of the SEPA system in the EU is pretty nice

(0) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zelle_(payment_service)

Online banking is also _the_ identity service for logging into official and semi official systems here (unless you’re a nerd and want to hook up a smart card reader and your [optional] ID card - which I totally am) and I guess there’s a heap of compliance to deal with to enter this space, which would further limit entry to the market.

Weird. Transfers were instant when I moved over there almost 20 years ago, and you could already do them online if you wished (there was a system of codes on a paper or a card, on top of login+password). And that was in very traditional banks like the Postal Bank (Postipankki/Leonia/Sampo: it changed name at least 3 times during my stay). I cannot imagine it can have gone worse during the last 10 years.

Opening an account was no problem and quasi-immediate. The only annoying thing is that as a foreigner I had to stay 2 years before getting a regular credit card (I didn't care about the 'credit', since in my home country we don't use credit cards but only debit cards, but for 2 years I was only allowed the Visa Electron which was not well accepted or perhaps not accepted at all abroad, so it was limited even as a debit card).

* https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Euro_Payments_Area

In your case, when you say slow, how slow has it become?

Don't know mate. I don't know the UK banking system so well. But if I take HK experience with HSBC and SC and Newcomers in the UK like Revolut then I doubt your statement will make any sense.

I think Germany has instant transfers for a fee but I am not sure. There was never a need for it.

Czech has instant transfers already? Great. The CZ Bank I know charges 6 Euro per incomming EU Euro transaction.

I've lived in the UK and another European country, and if I didn't recognize brands like "HSBC" and "Barclays" I would have thought they were failed non serious players.

The UK is quite literally decades behind some other countries, in banking.

In what ways?

For a start.