Fast or reliable: a user’s perspective on money movement
If you had to pick between knowing your money 100% gets to the recipient in a week versus a 50/50 chance of sending it instantly, what would you do?
Only 2 or 3 apps ever felt like they cared about what I wanted when I tapped on “Send” to send money or copied my account details to receive money. And to be honest, as a user, I wasn’t sure what I wanted until I started building those apps myself.
Like most people, I have a couple of bank accounts, a dozen digital wallets, and a bunch of apps for savings, investments, online payments, and more. I have probably done more KYC than I have signed my signature — a ritual everyone required before I could enjoy the blessings of fast, instant transfers.
It worked well at first. Somehow, money always magically appeared at its destination the moment I tapped “Send.” Competitors promised even faster delivery times. 1 minute became 30 seconds became 10 seconds became 5 seconds. These apps were getting really good at delivering their promises, until “it” happened.
I sent money and went on with my day — it always worked, so I had nothing to worry about. Or so I thought. Hours later, my friend, Richard, calls me to ask, “Have you sent it?”
“Uhh, yes I have.”
“Well, I haven’t gotten it yet.”
That’s weird. I open my app, and I can clearly see that the money was sent; so why can’t Richard see it. Richard calls his bank, they deny ever receiving the money; I call my app, they confirm sending money. If no one is claiming responsibility, where is my money? All of a sudden, fast and instant becomes irrelevant, and all I want is my money.
All I want is my money
There’s a certain brand of helplessness that comes with having your money stuck in transit or missing between two banks. Most times, the banks don’t care — you’re one statistic out of thousands of such cases they handle every day. The monotonic “we’re looking into it” or “please check in with the other bank as we have no record of such transaction with us” is just a forgettable part of their day.
In all of that frustration, I realised for the first time that I never cared about “fast” and “instant.” If I had to pick between knowing my money 100% gets to Richard in a week versus a 50/50 chance of sending it instantly, I’d choose the former any time, no questions asked.
But here I am, passed around, and no one willing to take responsibility.
Days, weeks, sometimes months pass and nothing happens. No resolution. No refunds. Your money is gone in the wind. You leave the app, vow to never come back, and you move on to the next competitor promising you the same fast and instant.
Behind-the-scenes
When I started working in financial services, I was shocked at how much was out of our control as service providers. Behind the promises of fast and instant, was a web of dependencies and integrations, most of them invisible to us. Our integrations provider had a service provider who had a service provider who was connected to a national switch. If any one failed, we were in trouble.
And yes, we got into trouble a lot. As a user, it was mind-blowing to me that anyone could boldly promise me speed under these circumstances. What do you mean fast when your payout provider has been down for 3 hours, and your payment rails are currently unreachable?
It turns out, with money movement, no one can unilaterally promise speed. You don’t own the playing field. Let’s say you are blazing fast, you still cannot make promises on behalf of other players that you rely on to build your products.
If this is the case, why is speed still a conversation?
Marketing promises speed, Support deals with the fallout when the system inevitably fails.
Customers get angry; at a certain scale, the public reputation of the company starts to get dragged online, money is missing, the team is in disarray, and all of a sudden, speed no longer matters.
What users like me want
Like I said, “I want my money.” I want reliability, and sometimes that means honesty, transparency, and hard work.
A deposit is a promise. I give you $1,000. You promise me to keep it safe and return it when I ask for it at any time in the future. Whether it takes a few days or seconds, I want complete certainty that you’ll always deliver the funds I have kept with you.
The best financial apps I have enjoyed using built with this rule. While they are not perfect — because it’s not all in their hands — they’ve built reliability into their moments of imperfection. Money got stuck? It safely gets flagged and reversed. Double debit? Auto reconciliation or built-in idempotency to catch and refund the transactions. Provider failure? Proactive communication and alternatives.
Speed is a feature. Reliability is the product. Reliability is what makes speed worth it. A fast transfer that never gets to its destination is always slower than a slow transfer that is always delivered.
So, please, just give me my money.