What is the difference between "wire" and "bank" transfer?

Question

This question comes after reading a sentence

https://money.stackexchange.com/a/69731/88420

Wire transfer is the only way I know that is not reversible. Bank transfers are reversible;

From what I know, the two are synonims. It is a transfer you order at your bank using the destination IBAN coordinates. In particular, since I live in EU, there is the SEPA network (Single European Payment Area) that operates transfer.

In the context of SEPA, you can transfer money at ridiculous fees in euros or to any Member State account (e.g. DE to HR), and I have been transferring money to a number of European international accounts for free in the past.

I know that these transfer are reversible, though the chargeback must be initiated by the sender bank. I mean, if the customer complains the bank has the option of either calling the money back or say "we are sorry, sir, but the transfer is gone", and I witnessed both behaviors in different scam situations.

In the English language, what is the difference between the two wordings of transfer? E.g. ask Google and he will call both "virement" in French, "banküberweisung" in German, "bonifico" in Italian, "transferencia" in Spanish, to cite the major Western European languages

Answer 1

1. "wire transfer" typically means the "SWIFT" system and which, if for some reason you wanted to, you could read about on wikipedia or similar. (Which, as an aside - and this causes vast confusion - is little more than "an early email-type messaging system". {Most folks think that the money travels "by SWIFT", or something: not really.} You can actually do "wire transfers" completely unrelated to using the SWIFT messaging system, but, whatever.)

2. "bank transfer" - in the context of contradistinction from "wire transfer" - means one of the many systems, more modern than "SWIFT wire transfer", which are used these days.

3. Note that point 2 can range from the staggeringly old-fashioned, basically laughable systems still used in the US ("ACH" etc) to the hyper-modern systems ("the government caps the fee at 20 cents") used in Europe, and the inexplicable/ineffable mysteriously Eastern systems used in Asia. To repeat, "bank transfer" is, let us say, the local, modern system for xferring money around. (Note that, for example, the OP here assumes "bank transfer" is "their" local national/regional bank-transfer-thing; actually, in Australia or Shanghai or Korea or Canada, the local national/regional bank-transfer-thing, of those parts, would seem very foreign/bizarre!)

4. Note though that the word "transfer", alone, can be and is certainly used to mean "any sort" of transfer, whether the ancient "wire transfer" ("SWIFT") or one of the more modern ones. This is important in the context of the question "how used in English?".

5. Regarding what it said in the original post. The writer was correct in spirit but totally, completely, wrong in detail. I've had "wire transfers" reversed dozens of times; conversely there's been numerous times I've failed to have a "bank transfer" {as in 2} of one type or another reversed when it needed to be. You should take the spirit of that post to mean "those scams work by having you send money that will be difficult to reverse, but then they reverse the other one" - quite correct. {Note that, just for example, one way the perps can engineer it to be difficult to reverse, is, by for example quickly taking the money away from yet another bogus account. Again, in short, it's simply totally incorrect that "wire transfers" ("usually aka SWIFT") - per se - as such - are irreversible; they're probably easier to reverse since it's all-human, basically.)

6. As a quasi-aside, "wire transfers" ("usually aka SWIFT") inevitably involve, eek, "correspondent banks" ... which inevitably causes spectacular grief and heartache when wires get lost, etc. Typically, in the milieu of "bank transfers" ("as used here in point 2"), you are less likely to / will never hear about "correspondent banks". So bear that in mind.

7. Global differences, it's laughably hard to do a "wire transfer" in the USA. This is getting slightly less true as time goes on, but for example, one of my banks in the USA, the only way to do a wire transfer is, I kid you not, send a fax to a certain, well, fax machine. Whereas, every European and Asian bank has wire transfers easily and perfectly built-in to their phone and Alexa interfaces. (Even though, TBC, naturally you'd just use the far superior modern "bank transfer" (point 2) systems there, where possible.)

8. Finally, reading again point 2 ... note that many, many people (including, eg. bank staff) have utterly no clue - not a clue - about anything, whatsoever, explained here in points 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. It's totally normal that folks will utterly misuse these terms, and completely, totally confuse the base concepts involved (ie, having absolutely no idea whether an acronym like "IBAN" means some bank in New Zealand, a methodology, a code, a computer, a service, a government department ... or whatever). Any number of times I've been dealing w/ something to do with an ACH, say, and everyone involved has referred to it as a "wire transfer" - and vice versa.

"It's that easy" :/

Answer 2

Point of view from the east: I'm from the Philippines.

When we send funds domestically and it involves a bank, we call it a bank transfer.

If a bank is not involved, we call it "pera padala" (direct translation: "money send", i.e. money transfer). For context, a lot of local couriers/pawn shops accept cash and give a tracking number, which a recipient uses to claim funds at any other branch.

Wire transfer automatically implies international transfers. Further, remittance implies incoming wire transfers, specifically when Filipinos working abroad send money back home.

Answer 3

There is no difference.

From the Wikipedia article (emphasis mine)

Wire transfer, bank transfer or credit transfer, is a method of electronic funds transfer from one person or entity to another. A wire transfer can be made from one bank account to another bank account, or through a transfer of cash at a cash office.

For different reasons, native English speakers may choose one or another in some cases and places, but in an international context like yours it makes no difference whatsoever. "Wire" comes from the fact that telegraph lines were used back in the day. In a general context, nowadays all bank transfers are "wire" transfers (at least, telematic) and vice-versa.