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Re:Why it's taking so long for Americans to get payments ins... by otterley on Sunday December 17, 2023 @11:14AM (#38673809)
Banks are probably a bit hesitant to unlock instant payments because they can’t be reversed and so they will be a juicy target for perpetrating fraud. I’m confident they’ll be rolled out eventually but I think it’s going to take a little time for banks to figure out what the right controls for the feature should be.
Re:Why it's taking so long for Americans to get payments ins... by missedthecue on Sunday December 17, 2023 @11:31AM (#38673916)
This is one of the main headwinds with Zelle. It's digital cash. It's advertised as digital cash. But still even with a lot of consumer education, so many people treat it as a reversible payment.

Congress grilled bank executives about it last year and even most of the representatives failed to grasp that it was digital cash. If someone gets defrauded, it's just as if they handed $20 to a scammer. It's going to be hard to reverse that.

Re:Why it's taking so long for Americans to get payments ins... by GauntletWizard on Sunday December 17, 2023 @01:25PM (#38675039)
It's not. It's just another database entry row. It's controlled by your bank and the receiving bank. It can be initiated without me being present. It can be initiated remotely.

Comparing it to cash is dumb.

Re:Why it's taking so long for Americans to get payments ins... by tshirthoodie on Sunday December 17, 2023 @02:15PM (#38675475)
It's a digital abstraction of cash. Are you happy now?
Re:Why it's taking so long for Americans to get payments ins... by mixmastamyk on Sunday December 17, 2023 @06:48PM (#38677618)
As mentioned you’re one of the folks who doesn’t understand there are at least two types of transactions in banking, reversible and non. One gives advantage to the seller and other the buyer. No one-size-fits-all and still quick type.
Re:Why it's taking so long for Americans to get payments ins... by satvikpendem on Sunday December 17, 2023 @08:54PM (#38678442)
Why can't they both be reversible?
Re:Why it's taking so long for Americans to get payments ins... by mixmastamyk on Sunday December 17, 2023 @10:20PM (#38678897)
Because the seller doesn’t want it to be and won’t proceed with the transaction if it is.

Imagine you’ve sold a car, the buyer drives off and later reverses the payment.

For very large transactions we have escrow—but isn’t quick by design.

Re:Why it's taking so long for Americans to get payments ins... by astrange on Sunday December 17, 2023 @11:19PM (#38679205)
There's no such thing as an unreversible transaction. There's merely transactions they don't want to reverse, which means you may have to go to court first, but you can still get the other side to send it back if you win.
Re:Why it's taking so long for Americans to get payments ins... by mixmastamyk on Sunday December 17, 2023 @11:42PM (#38679317)
You could lose the case or the other party could disappear. This happens in almost every fraud case, i.e. very frequently.

A new potential court-ordered opposite transaction is not what people think of when they hear reversible.

Re:Why it's taking so long for Americans to get payments ins... by astrange on Monday December 18, 2023 @05:59PM (#38689597)
It's just a credit and a debit whenever it is. A reversal before it settles isn't actually much more real.
Re:Why it's taking so long for Americans to get payments ins... by fragmede on Monday December 18, 2023 @04:26AM (#38680638)
tell that to the victims of wire fraud. they wire their savings to the scammers number, and then can't get it back, or at least, not all of it. Even after a court case.
Re:Why it's taking so long for Americans to get payments ins... by keep_reading on Monday December 18, 2023 @05:48PM (#38689509)
If the other end of the wire is a bank in the USA they certainly can get it back. It's only when the money has left the country that you're in real trouble
Re:Why it's taking so long for Americans to get payments ins... by mixmastamyk on Monday December 18, 2023 @05:56PM (#38689564)
When the money leaves the account, i.e. immediately in fraud cases.
Re:Why it's taking so long for Americans to get payments ins... by fragmede on Friday December 22, 2023 @08:04PM (#38740653)
To be clear, it's safe to assume the money's left the country in instances of wire fraud.
Re:Why it's taking so long for Americans to get payments ins... by hakfoo on Wednesday December 20, 2023 @12:31AM (#38705768)
The problem isn't a matter of messaging. You can draw as many diagrams and explain "it's digital cash" as much as you want.

It's that table stakes have changed. Mainstream customers-- and the regulators who represent them-- expect reversibility as a built-in feature. The technology exists for it. Saying "we're building digital cash in 2023" is like saying "we're going to sell a 4K OLED television with seperate VHF and UHF knobs, because it was fine for Grandpa's 17" CRT."

Various players may desperately want a non-reversible transaction to save a few cents per transaction, or to immunize themselves against bad-faith chargebacks, but it's pretty much ignoring everything we've learned about fraud and user experience in the last 50 years of electronic payments.

At best, there might be a market for a seperate, parallel universe of nonreversible transfers, but it would likely be something tightly regulated and B2B, rather than something that you can misdirect ordinary customers into choosing (like, say, Zelle or PayPal's friends-and-family mode)

Re:Why it's taking so long for Americans to get payments ins... by samarthr1 on Sunday December 17, 2023 @04:28PM (#38676633)
I am not sure how UPI is actually implementing it, but I remember reading am article about charge backs coming to upi for large transactions.