While all banks in France will have to allow instant transfers to be made free of charge in the coming days, the community platform Signal-Arnaques warns of the danger of these.
By January 9, all customers, individuals and businesses will be able to make an instant transfer without having to pay a single penny. Paid in most banks in 2024, this service will in fact become free, like the classic transfer, thanks to a revision of the European regulation on instant bank transfers.
If this free service is a good thing, it can also involve new dangers. This is what the Signal-Arnaques community site points out this Thursday, January 2. In a message published on X, she urges users not to use them systematically. This is because “the instant transfer makes it impossible to recall funds in the event of problems”.
A transfer impossible to cancel
Since the instant transfer is, as its name suggests, immediate, it is impossible to cancel it. “It is not possible to cancel an instant SEPA transfer (i.e. in euros, Editor’s note) from the moment it has been received by your bank due to the irrevocable nature of the transfers,” explains the Banque de France on its site .
Reason why “the immediacy of payments requires a need for additional security”, indicated Clément Bourgeois, expert at the Banque de France, during an interview with Signal-Arnaques last July.
Indeed, if a customer realizes that he has made an instant transfer to a fraudulent account, “recalling funds is almost impossible”, because “the money goes straight away”, he emphasizes. Signal-Arnaques therefore recommends that customers reserve this type of transfer “for relatives or accounts to which you are used to transferring money”, to avoid risks.
The bank is also “not required to reimburse” a customer if the latter made a mistake in the RIB and issues an instant transfer, as specified by the Banque de France. “In fact, the bank is required to execute transfer orders according to the information you send it. This means that its liability is only incurred in the event of an entry error or technical error,” explains- she said.
The bank may nevertheless, when it fails to recover the funds, provide the customer with “the information it holds” so that he can take legal action to recover his funds.
