At least where I live, if I make a transfer between my accounts (with different banks) too late on a Friday, the money won’t be available until Monday. But there are no humans involved in this process – it seems to me that could be instantaneous as far as the technology is concerned. What am I missing?
In: 1897
In the US, interbank transfers take place largely through the federal reserve’s automatic clearing house system. This system is only open at those times.
Why? Well the US both had a ton of legacy systems that are essential to the continued functioning of the financial system, and has a weirdly late number of small financial institutions. This system had largely stuck around to limit overhead for smaller FIs having to keep their back offices open 24/7.
Despite this, plans have been in progress for years to overhaul the system, because it IS stupid and antiquated, and larger FIs don’t like getting blamed for it. Last I heard, roll out was supposedly in 2023, but I’m sure it’s been pushed back at least once since then.
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