why bank transfers (especially SWIFT) takes too long time.

Question

I mean it’s just numbers switching places, why it sometimes take like 2 days? It’s not psyhical paper they are transferring after all.

In: 0

Answer 1

First try at ELI5: Swift is used when you and the person you want to send money to have different banks. Your bank is not sending money via Swift, it is sending instructions to credit the receiver. That means your bank needs an account with the receiving bank, so that the receiving bank can debit that account and credit the receiver. Things slowing down the transaction can be intermediary banks, your bank don’t have an account with the receiver, so you need a bank inbetween, or that the banks collect all transactions and execute them in one file transfer every business day, so called batch.