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yeah...90% of all international wires are done trough the SWIFT system...witch is a very secure system, but very old.....it's so secure becouse it requires that the banks have private X25 leased lines to one of the SWIFT point of presence...for example X25 leased lines from the banks in europe have to go all way to Belgium, at the SWIFT headquarters. The whole process and message transmiting is done with an interface and script language in a manner very similar to how Telnet works and witch is actualy very old. The good news is that SWIFT has started migrating all it;s network to an IP based network, and this process will be finished arround 2005-2006.
Also there are 2 big catches in doing international wires :
1 is that banks can not transfer forign curency directyly between them, as it must pass one bank from the country witch issued it. For example all USD transfers from all the world must pass trough a US coresponded bank . Ex: a USD wire from sweeden to italy can no go directly, it must pass a US bank.
2. And this is the biggest !! There is a fied in the wire transfer message called VALUE DATE : this is the day when the money actualy become available on the beneficiary account. Usualy, so they can keep the money more, the VALUE DATE is set at SPOT +2 this means that the wire will be credited in 3 business days on the beneficiary account. Even the transfer message is received by the beneficiary bank 1-2 days before, the money will be there is 3 days at minimum.....some banks wire funds with a value date of SPOT+5 or etc.
You can request your bank to wire fund with a VALUE DATE of SPOT+1 or even SPOT (this means same day value) and the money will be credited to the beneficiary account in the same day. ( if not affected by the time zone difference). But they will charge you extra for sending a wire with a Value Date of SPOT +2 (10-50$ or even more) couse they will have to let the money go same day and they will loose some intrest they would be made if the money were delayed...
Hope this helps
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