How f**king long does a bleeding wire transfer take?

BigCon

I had some money due to me from the states and opted to take a wire transfer as I needed the cash right away and a cheque takes a week or so to get here.
Anyhow, that was last Friday and although they have completed the transaction at their side there's still no sign of it here.
Surely the whole point of a wire transfer is that it's instantaneous?
Anyone know how long this will take???

D'Peoples Voice

BigCon wrote:

I had some money due to me from the states and opted to take a wire transfer as I needed the cash right away and a cheque takes a week or so to get here.
Anyhow, that was last Friday and although they have completed the transaction at their side there's still no sign of it here.
Surely the whole point of a wire transfer is that it's instantaneous?
Anyone know how long this will take???

I would say at best 3 working days.

The transfer made through their bank in the US would have to go to the American Real-time gross settlement system in the US, which I think is still Fedwire for cash payments. Then From Fedwire it would have to go to the European Central Bank via Target (usually), then from the European Central Bank to our real-time gross settlement system in Ireland, the Central bank of Ireland, then from the Central Bank of Ireland to your local bank.

BigCon

Thanks for your reply, I didn't realise there were so many parts to it. Seems kind of pointless as I would have had the cheque by now and could have lodged it and drawn against it straight away.
I'll know the next time...

TabulaRasa22

BigCon wrote:

Thanks for your reply, I didn't realise there were so many parts to it. Seems kind of pointless as I would have had the cheque by now and could have lodged it and drawn against it straight away.
I'll know the next time...

I had to wait no less than three weeks for a wire transfer to an asian country, if its any comfort to you. :rolleyes:

woody

It took be 12 Days Wiring money from here to Israel once dunno if it is the same.

jimmycrackcorm

Isn't it amazing that the banks make so much profits, have so much invested in IT and it takes so long to process these. And to think a secure email goes instantly.

I generally use Paypal on Ebay but I've had to do a few transations with Wire transfers and I still can't fill out the forms without the help of a bank clerk.

onedmc

Nope it wont touch RTGS because it not real time. Retail cash transactrions are handled in the old fashoned way. If will be sent via SWIFT to the originators correspondent bank in the destination country. And from there to the destination bank within the country.

Depending on the bank it probably dosnt have a correspondant bank in Irealnd and it may not be a full SWIFT member. If these are the case it must be sent from the local bank to an international bank then perhaps to two correspondent bank before it get to destination.

The above really shounldnt take more than 2 days (2 end of days) and in reality could be done in a couple of hours if they send MT101 instruction instead of 100 but the reall problem is with the local banks.

Noramlly the SWIFT payment is handled by headoffoce and they will require a scanned copy of the signed original payment. The local branch had to credit the cash account and debit the head-office account. Then headoffice has to check the accounts against the paperwork and credit the NOSTRO account before entering the data on the SWIFT gateway. This is nearly always all done by hand so there will be loads of checking to be done. All this takes up to 1 to 3 days.

The correspondant banking is always done electronically but many banks dont send the payment on until the end of day. So this can take between 0 to 1 day.

The same then normally happens at the destination bank with the payment comming through swift. Alot on the incoming is completely automated because it both retail and corporate is all brought together but banks are often still waiting until the end of day before forwarding info.

Some banks are now bypassing SWIFT but it hasn't much changed in 15 years.

MartMax

is wire transfer as same as telegraphic transfer (TT) ?

i used to do a lot of TTs from my HSBC bank account in south east asia to my AIB account here. done via internet banking, cashed into my AIB account within less than 24 hrs. very handy thou, unfortunately if i'm sending money from here, AIB doesn't have that kind of facility on its internet banking. have to fill up forms and queue in the branch!