{"id":3106,"date":"2025-10-14T20:33:45","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T18:33:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.betaalvereniging.nl\/en\/?post_type=btv_wiki&p=3106"},"modified":"2026-02-26T12:17:50","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T11:17:50","slug":"wordlwide-payments","status":"publish","type":"btv_wiki","link":"https:\/\/www.betaalvereniging.nl\/en\/knowledge-base\/market-infrastructure\/wordlwide-payments\/","title":{"rendered":"Wordlwide payments"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Within Europe and worldwide:
what are the differences?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Within Europe, account-to-account transfer of euro amounts has been extensively harmonized and streamlined. All European payment service providers (such as banks) can efficiently settle accounts with each other in euros via the central T2 and TIPS systems<\/u><\/strong><\/a> of the Eurosystem of national central banks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For transfers to and from countries outside Europe, involving other currencies, there is usually no central settlement system. For this purpose, banks in different countries maintain payments accounts with each other. If two banks in different countries do not have payments accounts with each other, additional correspondent banks are required. A correspondent bank is a bank in the country of the payer or the recipient where both the paying and receiving banks maintain their own payments accounts in order to settle accounts between each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All orders and confirmations of transfers between Europe and the rest of the world almost always go through the digital messaging network of SWIFT<\/u><\/strong><\/a> (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Based on highly secure SWIFT messages between banks, banks exchange amounts of money between different currencies and transfer those amounts within their own account administrations from one payments account to another. So no money magically flies across borders from one bank to another in SWIFT messages. The money is only moved digitally between payments accounts<\/u><\/strong><\/a> within a single bank or between payments accounts at a national central bank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speed<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The speed at which the recipient can access the amount paid varies greatly between European and global transfers. For global transfers, it varies greatly from country to country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within Europe (between SEPA countries)<\/u><\/strong><\/a>, euro transfers are increasingly arriving in the recipient’s payments account within ten seconds, thanks to so-called instant payments<\/u><\/strong><\/a>. Traditional euro transfers arrive in the recipient’s payments account by the end of the next business day at the latest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a global payment between different countries and currencies<\/strong>, all necessary SWIFT messages are usually sent or received by all banks involved within an hour. All necessary internal payments between payments accounts at the paying and receiving banks, possibly at one or more correspondent banks and at national central banks, can take much longer, sometimes many business days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each bank involved must perform various checks on a transaction to comply with local and international laws and regulations<\/u><\/strong><\/a>. The more banks involved in a global transfer, the longer these checks and all administrative procedures can take.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cost<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The cost of global transfers depends on:<\/p>\n\n\n\n