Some banks can schedule transfers, but not payments. Or, not payments by specific routes. My credit union will cut a paper check and mail it to your bank (yes, that's seriously what they actually do), but can't schedule Zelle, or (maybe they can do it now, but they couldn't a few years ago) an electronic transfer.

Like someone else up-thread, my experience moving back to the US from Europe, ~15 years ago, was like stepping back to the financial dark ages. It's a bit better now (Zelle, Plaid, Mint / Monarch - though I'm well-aware of the privacy downsides of those third-party platforms), but the industry isn't close to catching up with the fifteen-year-old state of the art, let alone, say, Indian or Brazilian micro-transaction networks.

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SoftTalker 2 hours ago | parent [-]

My credit union is the same. You can set up automatic/periodic transfers from one account to another at the same credit union, but to "transfer" money to an account at another bank you use the "bill pay" system which ends up as a check (possibly an ECH or maybe an actual paper check, depending on which bank is receiving the funds).

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sroussey 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Yes, I pay my HOA fees via bill pay so they write a check and send it next door via the mail. This is Wells Fargo.

Also, they remove the money when they mail the check… not when it gets cashed.

	▲	SoftTalker an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Mine was that way, but they changed so that it's like a regular check and funds are only withdrawn when the check is cashed. I suppose there might have been some difficulty explaining what they were doing with all the money for the checks that were never presented for payment.