Why is wire transfer so slow and expensive in the USA?

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I’m a foreigner but work for a US company. The company gave me some stock (on E*trade) which I sold, so there is some money, and I’d like to wire the money to another account, which is also in US (firstrade)

The wire took several days and charge me 25 US dollars. In my country, wire transfer between different banks is near instant and charge less than 1 US dollars.

So my question is, is it how wire transfer normally works in the USA? Or perhaps it’s because I’m a foreigner? If it’s normal, what’s the difference between US bank and other countries’?

In: Economics

12 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

The US has hundreds of bank, all of which fight tooth and nail against government oversight, hence trying to get them to agree on any form of common electronic interchange of money fails. Tied in with that is that there is money to be made with existing, archaic means of transfer.

So the US is stuck with an archaic, expensive form of money exchange.

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