We were having a lot of problems with that in Honduras, staff in the branch did not know how to do that, fees are extremely high and sometimes the bank system is just offline and you get sent home. There's a reason all these alternatives like Western Union etc. exist for this remittance use case.

It was a big reality check for me usually living in Germany and having access to a lot of banks and modern neo-banks.

My local banks know how to international transfers but I have to go into a bank office and fill out a paper form. Receiving international transfers they call and ask if I wish to accept it, if I can't answer the phone right then the transfer gets delayed. If the sender does not include my middle name, I have to come into the office and sign an affidavit that this person with this different name is also me. Each time.

I've had to use it when my bank's purchase limits did not allow for card (virtual or real), but the same purchase was allowed when going through PayPal. It was annoying AF, but was much faster than contacting my bank and getting permission to spend my money.

I wish. The small inconvenience of putting in an IBAN and a matching name instead of just an email address is already enough for many people to default to paypal. Just happened to me again yesterday, the guy preferred to bring cash next time we see each other instead of just receiving my info via text.

Sepa is how my kid's daycare debits me each month, or how I transfer money to other accounts (most bills are direct-debit, but sometimes I get a one-off invoice and I have to transfer the money myself).

But for the small person-to-person type thing, paypal is the defacto here (sadly).

SEPA uses your IBAN (account number), and one can also enter this account number for payment, implicitly allowing the store to withdraw money from it...