"Visa Direct' for international payments, anyone know anything about it?

While recently (yet again!) looking for a reasonably priced, easy and quick way to send some money to Germany my Google searches turned up a new Visa service called "Visa Direct".

From what I've found out it was started in 2003 and the basic service allows payments directly from one Visa card to another, across borders or whatever, with the same sort of charges as you would get using your card for normal payments. Then just recently they've added a further service which allows payments directly into bank accounts from your Visa card (within the Euro zone I think).

This is almost perfect for the typical £50 to £500 pound sort of payment I want to make a few times a year to France, Germany, Spain, etc.

Of course not a single Visa card provider in the UK offers "Visa Direct" yet, but Visa themselves told me that there will be a UK bank offering this in the not too distant future.

Does anyone alse know anything about this service and the likelihood of it really becoming available here in the UK?

Reply to
usenet
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It will probably be another version of PayPal, NOCHEX and so on.

I had an interesting time trying to set up a NOCHEX account. To verify my ID, they tried to charge my card a small amount which I had to find the amount of and tell them to prove myself worthy of one of their accounts. I tried three cards and each charge was declined and I was advised to contact my bank. As I had to talk to one of the card issuers anyway, I asked what had happened. Apparently NOCHEX had set their merchant options not to process small amounts.

PayPal could well be suited to what you want to do. I've had no problems worth mentioning with them.

Reply to
dp

It certainly doesn't sound like it, it sounds as if it works in the much the same way as using your card to pay for goods.

It doesn't do the one thing I nearly always want to do, send some money to someone's bank account. It's also hassle for the receiver.

For example my latest requirement for sending money to Europe was buying a secondhand mower from an agricultural machinery business in Germany. I can't seriously expect them to take a PayPal payment. They have given me all the normal sort of information one expects a business seller to give - Bank name, account number, IBAN number etc. so what I want is a (simple) way to send some money to their account.

It's dead easy within the UK so why not to EU accounts? OK, the underlying mechanism is different and more expensive but if I have full bank details for the payee why on earth can't I set up the transaction on line?

Reply to
usenet

You can do this online with HSBC Offshore. Maybe time to choose a different bank?

Chris

Reply to
Chris Blunt

Hmm, yes, but an offshore bank account costs money doesn't it which

*is* significant for the sorts of amounts I'm talking about. If I'm only going to send (say) £1000/year total to different places in Europ a charge of £2.50/month to run an accoun to do it seems rather a lot. However it might still be worth it, £2.50/month (if that was the cost) is only £30/year which is probably less than the overheads of sending payments by other means.

I'll look at the costs of HSBC offshore accounts, it might well be worth it. My main account in the UK is an HSBC one.

Reply to
usenet

Well there's one significant downside to the HSBC offshore accounts, the minimum opening balance is at least £5000 and in many cases £10000.

Reply to
usenet

If you want something for nothing, you should have said so. :-)

Notice, by the way, that Chris said "You can do this online", he didn't say it would be free. Chances are the "online" wotsit will cause a pile of paperwork to be printed out at bank HQ, which will then be actioned by some drone in the time-honoured way.

No, you must have that wrong. It's £30/year to operate the account, but (even if you initiate them yourself online) the transactions will almost certainly involve a fee each time, which will probably be of the same order of magnitude as with any other bank where you can't do it on line.

Reply to
Ronald Raygun

Surely one of the 'selling points' of online banking is that you do a lot of the form filling yourself which saves the bank money.

I eventually sent my 570 Euros to Germany using HSBC's "Worldpay" service which cost £9, not a bad deal really but the amount of time I and the bank wasted doing it must have cost far more than £9. If I'd been able to fill in the forms online it would surely have cost the bank at least £9 less than it actually did with a bank employee asking me questions and filling in a form.

As (I think) I said earlier in this thread I'm quite happy to spend, say, £20 on this sort of transfer for the speed and convenience of being able to do it online. However I don't see why I need to open a special 'off shore' account in order to be able to do it, if HSBC in Jersey or somewhere can provide the facility to do it online why can't HSBC in the UK do it? I can't see that it's anything to do with the money laundering regulations can it?

Reply to
usenet

Problem with online banking is that instructions cannot be signed for. I agree it would make sense for banks to offer International Payments forms online and for you to be able to print them off and sign and hand them into your bank. What terms and conditions do HSBC Jersey impose on such an online payment? Does their internet fraud guarantee apply in this instance? What if someone had hacked into your account and cleaned your account out, would you expect HSBC to repay you? At least with a signature there are procedure in place where they attempt to confirm your identity before making a payment and if they make a payment where they have not confirmed your ID they deserve to lose the money! Eric

Reply to
Eric Jones

Should it not be possible for the customer to provide the bank with a public key or X.509 certificate and digitally sign the instructions with that? Or even have it the other way round and the bank generate an X.509 certificate which they have signed and issue that to the customer to be used for signing instructions. It would then be up to the customer to keep the corresponding private key (and/or the passphrase) secure.

Reply to
Graham Murray

No, it doesn't. There are no regular charges to operate the account.

Reply to
Chris Blunt

I wondered about that too, but I don't think so. I find that international transfers (at least to other overseas HSBC offices) often arrive in the destination account within a couple of hours of requesting them online. Of course they might just be very fast in getting that paperwork completed, but somehow I suspect not.

Chris

Reply to
Chris Blunt

... but why differentiate between international and UK payments, the risks are the same aren't they?

I've no idea, it wasn't me that suggested them.

Exactly the same applies to any bill payment I make in the UK using my on line bank accounts here surely.

Reply to
usenet

The Co-Operative bank does not require a signature or a form to be filled in. You can do this with them over the phone. You do obviously answer security questions.

Reply to
Ruari Callow

We don't expect this for payments within the UK so why should one want to do it for overseas payments?

Reply to
usenet

Can you point me to this account on the HSBC (offshore or not) site then please as I couldnt't find any accounts that cost nothing to run. Not to mention that they expected at least £5000 opening balance (which, given the interest you'd lose is a significant additional cost).

Reply to
usenet

Abbey [National] Business offer a similar facility which I could use but I still don't understand why there is all this complexity/security to send an overseas payment whereas with the same account I can make payments within the UK without jumping through hoops.

An IBAN number for the destination payee is surely no more likely to be mis-typed (due to check digits etc.) than a bank code and account number for a UK payment. Therefore I just don't see why it's made so difficult to make overseas payments.

Reply to
usenet

I think that we should expect this for payments within the UK and any other instruction given to the banks electronically. That banks do not do it just reduces the level of security and increases the possibility of fraud (both by third parties and the account holder).

Reply to
Graham Murray

One would have thought so. But it might be more difficult to correct mistakes (e.g. if as a result of botching up account details the money has gone into the wrong person's account) once the funds have been remitted abroad, than it is within the UK banking system which operates under the umbrella of one big clearing house. Once you go out into the cold, all bets are off.

Reply to
Ronald Raygun

No one would use online banking if there were all these additional security checks, it would be pointless. The security they have in place is at least as good as that provided by your signature, you don't think they actually check the signature on every cheque you write do you?

Reply to
usenet

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