> instant transfers that cannot cost more than standard transfers

Interesting, I didn't know that. Now, why would anyone want to do a non-instant transfer, then (short of not knowing about it like in my case)? Doesn't this mandate basically make all transfers instant?

My bank sets the default to "Standard (1-3 Days). Many forget to click the checkbox. I have also heard: "I only do instant when I need it" implying some implicit cost/limit they fear. This is probably still worth it for Banks. As not _all_ transfers are now the dreadful super expensive instant variety.

They are allowed to set caps, I've seen them down to around €5000 per transaction so it's not literally all transfers. Still free to transfer above, just takes more than a few seconds to do so, presumably for fraud/theft protection. Some banks will make that a daily limit, or configurable, there's some flexibility but they're mandated to justify all limits with no arbitrary discrimination against instant transfers.

In practice, obviously most personal payments are well under that margin, so within-EU bank transfers are defacto instant everywhere. Most banking apps I've seen don't even show an 'instant/slow' option any more, it's just all instant.

A lot of banks won’t even give you the option of a non-instant transfer now, at least here in Portugal. Though non-instant transfers can in theory be recalled since there is some time before the money gets to the destination account, my bank even gives a warning now when doing a transfer to ensure I have the details right because they can not recall a transaction after the money arrives.

You have 1 hour to recall and cancel a transfer, but an instant transfer is non cancellable