The bank transfers are about to change in Spain. This is due to the introduction of a european regulation to which entities must adapt, at the latest, on January 9, 2025.
This rule was introduced last February by the European Parliament with the aim of “ensuring that bank transfers reach the accounts of individuals and companies in the EU immediately.”
The regulation establishes 10 seconds the time it takes for a transfer to reach its recipient with “independence of day or time”. Likewise, according to the note distributed then by the European Parliament, entities must also reinforce the security of their systems to prevent the transferred money from ending up “by error or fraud” in the wrong account.
Currently, customers have two options when making a bank transfer. The first are ordinary transfers, where the money reaches the destination account in 24 hours. The second are immediate transfers with a period of 20 seconds and which can be ordered 24 hours a day, every day of the year.
The price of immediate transfers in 2025
What the new European standard does is ‘unify both’. Now, beyond the benefits that this measure may bring to customers, especially in saving waiting time, the big question has been what will happen to transfer prices.
What this regulation says is that Immediate transfers must have the same cost as ordinary transfers. That is, ordinary transfers may have a cost starting in January, but never higher than what an immediate transfer had before the application of the rule. Currently, these transfers have a cost, although it is fixed.
The OCU thus proposes three scenarios: that those who did not do so begin to apply commissions for transfers, that they stop charging for immediate online transfers and that they segment customers by offering free transfers only to some.
Now, as ABC reported, banks are already adapting their systems, but most of them do not foresee major changes in their policies. What many propose is that immediate transfers, like ordinary ones, remain free on online channelswhile a charge will be applied by telephone or in person.
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