Introducing instant payments (devoid of extra fees)

If you’ve seen Margin Call, you know there’s only three ways to succeed in the banking industry:

1. You can be the first to enter a peculiar market, so as to secure it before a competitor does.
2. You can be smarter than the competition, which can turn you into a successful challenger.
3. Or… you can just cheat, so as to overthrow faster or smarter competitors by any means.

If you don’t see any connection yet between Margin Call and Memo Bank, then keep on reading.

Today, we’re introducing our instant credit transfers feature. Using instant transferts, Memo Bank clients can wire up to 100,000€ in 10 seconds, 24/7. Think of it as the equivalent of text messages or e-mails, but for credit transfers: transmission time is reduced to almost zero, because your credit transfert lands into your beneficiary’s pocket in ten seconds (or less). What used to take days now only takes a few seconds.

For an instant credit transfer to work, both the sender and the receiver must handle this special kind of credit transfers. In other words, both the sending bank and the receiving one must be able to handle instant transfers. It’s like the telephone: you need one to call people who have one too. Good news for small and medium businesses owners: in France, most traditional banks already handle instant credit transfers. Technically, you can wire money from your Memo Bank account to a BNP or Crédit Agricole account in 10 seconds or less, starting today.

Back to Margin Call. How could Memo Bank succeed in the crowded instant credit transfer market? Do we plan to cheat our way to the top? Nope. Are we smarter than the competition? No, we’re not that toffee-nosed. So what can we do to succeed? Answer: we can be the first to offer instant credit transfers… at no extra cost with a transaction limit of 100,000€ per transfer. Most of the traditional banks already offer instant transfers, sure, but most of them charge 1€ per instant transfer—the Banque Postale being a notable exception here. By cutting this "tax" on instant transfer, and by pushing the transaction limit up to 100,000€ per transfer, we can say that we’re the first to offer instant transfers up to 100,000 € at no extra costs.

Extra speed at no extra cost

Memo Bank clients can start making instant credit transfers today, without paying any extra fee for choosing instant transfers over standard ones. Unlike traditional banks charging up to 1€ per instant transfer, we don’t charge any extra cost for instant transfers. Technically, if you’ve signed up for our unlimited plan, you can turn all your standard transfers into instant ones and you’ll still pay the same price at the end of the month. When we say "no extra cost", we mean it.

In other words, you don’t have to make a choice between what’s fast and what’s cheap. You can have both. With Memo Bank, speed is cheap. Whether your credit transfers land in 10 seconds, or in a few days, your transaction costs remain the same.

Instant transfers are not turned on by default. You need to opt-in first, on a case by case basis. Every time you make a new credit transfer, you can turn it into a standard one or an instant one.

Spare your cash reserves without doing much work

Instant credit transfers speed things up, obviously, but they also allow your cash reserve to breath a little bit more. Instead of sending your credit transfer on Monday to be sure that your beneficiary will receive your money by Wednesday, just send your money on Wednesday instead. And keep your cash on hand for two more days, within reach, on your own bank account.

Pay your suppliers and your employees in less than 10 seconds

With instant transfer, you’ll be able to:

• Pay your suppliers as soon as you receive their invoice. Since you won’t need to wait for 48 hours when you add a new beneficiary to your Memo Bank account, and since instant transfers arrive in 10 seconds, you’ll be able to pay any supplier in no time, even the new ones. This will come in handy if your suppliers are waiting for your payment to start their job.

• Pay your employees as soon as you’re ready to do so. Since grouped transfers work with instant transfers, you’ll be able to pay your employees using a single transfer that will only take 10 seconds to land on your employees bank accounts—supposing your employees use banks that know how to handle instant transfers.

When your transfer absolutely, positively has to be there on the same day, you can now use instant transfers to get the job done.

Works with your internal transfers too

Your suppliers and your beneficiaries will love your new instant payment feature, for sure, but what’s in it for you? Well, you might be your own beneficiary from time to time. If you’re using several banks to manage your cash, you might find yourself in a situation where you need to send money from a bank account of your own to another bank account that belongs to you too. Thanks to instant transfers, you’ll be able to balance your cash reserve in no time. All the cash you have on hand will be available all of the time. No more "my own money is currently being transferred between Bank A and Bank B and there’s nothing I can do to speed that process up".

Receive instant payments in 10 seconds

Instant transfers work both ways. Of course you can use them to send money in less than 10 seconds from your Memo Bank account. But you can also use instant transfers to receive money on your Memo Bank account in less than 10 seconds. Assuming your clients know how to use instant transfers, you’ll be able to cut your invoice collection time, because you won’t have to wait for your client’s bank to process your incoming transfer. Less waiting for you, more tranquility for your cash balance. But again, it only works if your client cares. So spread the word. Ask your client to perform an instant credit transfer and tell them that your bank knows how to handle them.

We hope you’ll find instant credit transfer useful. If you have any questions, just call your Memo Bank banker. They’re already familiar with instant credit transfer and they’ll get you started in less than 10 seconds too—almost.