US has means of instant payments, it's just not standard across banks. There's lots of way other countries are far behind as well (like Canada having banks that still charge for every transaction you make).
I wouldn’t say Canada is “far behind” because the banks like to rip people off.
We’ve had a single unified payment network for like 40 years. We’ve had instantly settled electronic transfers (Interac e-Transfer) exposed to consumers directly through their institutions for about 20 years. We’ve had chip and pin and NFC contactless payments for quite a long time.
And the rip off is really just the handful of big banks. My credit union (which is in another province but thanks to the unified network and mobile deposit, etc I’ve been able to continue using on the other end of the country without issue or inconvenience) provides free accounts with no per-transaction or other fees. They’re also happy to issue a loan or provide other services online.
Obviously I’m not as familiar with the US system, but I think putting Canada anywhere near the same level as the US is a mistake.
The US has a unified payment system (ACH) and has had it for many decades it's just not instant, usually takes 3 business days for a transaction to fully settle.
> The US has a unified payment system (ACH) and has had it for many decades it's just not instant
And for instantaneous transfers, we have Fedwire. The original real-time wire service. It’s free for most commercial and high net worth users, and thus, from a bulk economic perspective, sufficient for industry.
Interac (in Canada) is trivially simple to use, and quick.
1. Send the payment through your logged in session at the bank or credit union, or via their respective phone app.
2. Select the recipient, adding a new one if needed. They'll need a mobile # or email address.
3. Include the question and its one-word answer that the recipient has to answer to accept.
4. Hit send
5. Recipient is notified, follows the link, and answers the question. If they have it set up, it might be auto-deposited without the question/answer.
It takes minutes, and doesn't ask the sender for the recipient's banking details.
Because the Fed sits on your money for 1-5 days so they can play with the float. It means you either need to wait out your transactions for this random length of time or take the other guy at his word that he send the money (LOL).
