Money Transfer
Transferring money from one place to another is one of the more common banking activities carried out by people. And, there are a LOT of different ways to get your money from here to there - or back again.
Wire transfers, also known as bank wires are among the fastest and most efficient for moving large sums of money over large distances. A wire transfer works a litte differently than most people believe however. Most usually, in the case of an everyday bank wire transfer, no physical cash ever moves. The “transfer” is carries out by a matching set of bookkeeping entries by the sending and receiving institutions in question.
For this reason, it is important that the sending a receiving banking institutions be hooked into the swift transfer system (or other standard messaging system available in the given jurisdiction) and they have reciprocal banking relationships with other institutions. These reciprocal banking relationships are known as correspondant accounts.
In addition to the multi-bank system of swift or fedwire or eurowire, some companies have attempted to setup their own network or payers and payees either owned partially owned or affiliated with them.
Probably the most famous of these (and longest standing) is Western Union. Western Union boasts outlets in nearly every city of size worldwide. A payer can go into a Western Union representative office anywhere in the world and send to any other office. At that point the receiver would go into the office, identify themselves and receive the payment.
This is a similar system to that worked out by the people at Moneygram.
Several companies have tried to set something up that leveraged the credit card and atm networks, and also some have used the internet or ecurrencies to produce something similar.
Probably the most popular and famous web based money transfer site is PayPal. Pay Pal was purchased by auction site ebay around the turn of the century amidst massive pressure from ebay users (buyers and sellers). Moneybookers is another popular site which enjoys more popularity in the EU.
Offshore money transfers are acheived often using the same methods however, in the case of pay pal they have placed extreme restrictions on dealing with anything carrying the “offshore” moniker, and in addition, restrict users ability to fund online gaming. Further, serious banking restrictions for people in non OECD countries makes it a burdensome way to send an receive monies from countries not as well established in the global banking community.