Excessive cost of transferring funds across borders

Transferring small amounts of money across borders is slow, prohibitively expensive and unreliable.

In 1993 the average transfer time for transferring $150 from one EEC/EU country to another through European banks was 6 to 8 days. The cost, including bank commissions, was equivalent to 14% of the value transferred. Customers have little redress in the event of banking errors during such transactions.