> "The U.S. has more than 4,000 small banks. That's more than any other country in the world and more than all of the small banks in the entire European Union combined."

I doubt this. Austria alone has 334 independent Raiffeisenbanks(!) (usually Ltd. or Cooperatives) and this is only considering one of our three banking sectors. In total we easily have over 500 independent banks in Austria alone and I know our Swiss colleagues have much more than this. And we're just two tiny countries.

Instant payments in the EEA have worked without an issue for a long time now, by the way.