What’s the Difference between Direct Deposit and a Wire Transfer?

Hamilton Kiah
Hamilton Kiah
January 15th, 2020
Estimated read time: 1 minute, 44 seconds

Direct deposit is cheaper and slower than a wire transfer. A direct deposit is limited to the currency of your local direct deposit banking system.

For example, a client can only receive payment in USD in the United States via the ACH system, EUR in Europe via the SEPA system, GBP in the United Kingdom via the BACS system, and CAD in Canada via the EFT system.

Direct deposit is cheaper and slower than a wire transfer. A direct deposit is limited to the currency of your local direct deposit banking system. For example, a client can only receive payment in USD in the United States via the ACH system, EUR in Europe via the SEPA system, GBP in the United Kingdom via the BACS system, and CAD in Canada via the EFT system. USD cannot be received via direct deposit outside of the United States, and the systems for non-USD currencies are also exclusive to their currency’s respective banking system. Direct deposits are processed overnight. Direct deposits outside of the US will incur a conversion fee. Depending on the amount of the payment, a wire transfer may be a cheaper option.

A wire transfer is almost immediately deposited into the client account. Clients are charged a fixed fee per wire transfer. Clients choose to receive wires when they want to receive a currency that is not the local currency. For example, if a client is in the United Kingdom and would like to receive USD, the USD needs to be wired to the account in the United Kingdom. A wire is also necessary when FastSpring’s bank does not have a local presence in the client’s country.

There are some countries that have double currency. For example, Switzerland has CHF and Sweden has SEK, and they both have EUR. Because EUR is part of the SEPA payment system, EUR can be directly deposited in client accounts. However, FastSpring’s bank does not have a local presence in Switzerland nor Sweden. Without a banking presence in those countries, FastSpring can only wire in CHF and SEK.

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