Wire transfers != ACH transfers

Wire transfers are (almost) real-time and use Fedwire (domestic) and SWIFT (international) for communication in real-time. Usually banks charge hefty fees for this.

ACH is a batch network that takes minimum of 2 business days and generally costs mush less - often free too if you go through the bank's site.

The 2 are separate networks and regulated completely differently and hence different charges. Bottom line: if you want money transferred ASAP i.e. real-time/same-day it's likely to cost you. If you can wait for 2-3 days its likely to be free

> Im not sure why people would pay for that, other than not knowing they dont have to.

That's an odd thing to say. For those of us that aren't Capital One customers, we do have to pay, because the Capital One service you use is not available to us. It's not some web service like PayPal we can sign up for on a whim either; opening a 360 account with Capital One requires an application, a credit check, an existing checking account with another bank, etc.

at rentsent, we've been using Dwolla as an abstraction layer for bank accounts - it's not fast, but it is pretty cheap, and a lot easier than having to remember someone else's bank account number