logoalt Hacker News

miki123211yesterday at 6:20 PM0 repliesview on HN

The US doesn't really do bank transfers the way we do here.

There's CashApp / Venmo / Zelle, previously Paypal, for P2P transfers (paying your friend for a half of the pizza you both just ate), but that's largely an internet phenomenon. There are wire transfers, but those are expensive and largely for big-ticket items you don't buy that often, think cars or houses, not TVs. There are ACH transfers, which is how wages and bills often work. The fun part of ACH is that the person executing the transfer doesn't have to be the account owner, so businesses can just transfer bill payments from your account to theirs. And then there are the famous checks, which work when no other option is available.

Non-purchase person-to-business transaction are largely done via credit card, sometimes by check or ACH. Explicitly instructing your bank to send a transfer to an account number provided by the business, either through a form or through a "quick transfer" UI, is very rare on that side of the pond.