Why does a bank payment takes a long time to be received, especially if there is a weekend in the middle?
In: 123
When you transfer money from Bank A to Bank B, what actually happens is:
– Bank A deducts the money from your account and adds it to their reserves
– Bank A adds your transfer to a big list of transfers
– Bank A enters that big list into SWIFT during the afternoon on a business day (SWIFT is only open Monday to Friday)
– SWIFT sorts out all the lists overnight
– In the morning, SWIFT gives Bank B a big list of all the transfers their accounts have received on the previous day
– Bank B finds your transfer on the list and credits your account with the money from its own reserves
– At the end of the month, SWIFT calculates which banks owe how much to each other to settle up all the transfers
Instantaneous digital transfer services (like OSKO) are springing up all the time. However, countries have to update their legislation and payments systems to make it possible.
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