Wire transfer

A wire transfer moves value directly between bank accounts through a messaging and settlement network rather than by physically moving cash. In practice this means one bank instructs another to credit a recipient, using systems such as SWIFT for cross-border payments, Fedwire for domestic US transfers, or SEPA for euro payments within the European Economic Area.

Speed and cost depend heavily on the network used. A domestic wire often settles the same business day, while an international SWIFT transfer can take one to five business days as it passes through several correspondent banks, each of which may deduct its own fee. SEPA transfers within the EU are typically free or low-cost, and the newer SEPA Instant scheme now settles many euro payments in under ten seconds, around the clock. Cross-border wires, by contrast, commonly cost between roughly twenty and forty-five dollars per transaction.

In crypto, wire transfer is the main route for moving large sums of fiat onto and off a centralized exchange, especially for amounts too large for card payments or instant bank transfers. Because a wire always passes through regulated banks, it also triggers standard Know Your Customer and anti-money-laundering checks. This reliance on intermediaries is precisely what cryptocurrency transfers were designed to remove: a blockchain transaction settles peer to peer without a bank in the middle, though it trades that convenience for the price volatility and irreversibility risks that a wire does not carry.