Wire transfer
A wire transfer moves money bank-to-bank one payment at a time, settling same-day and irreversibly — fast and final, but the most expensive domestic rail.
A wire transfer moves money directly between banks, one payment at a time, settling the same day and with no easy way back. It’s the fast, final option — and the most expensive of the domestic rails.
How it works
- Each wire is processed individually and in real time, not in a batch.
- The sending bank debits the payer and instructs the receiving bank to credit the payee that day.
- Once sent, a wire is effectively irreversible — recovering funds means asking the recipient to send them back.
Domestically this runs over rails like Fedwire in the US or CHAPS in the UK; internationally it typically travels over SWIFT.
Why it matters
Wires are the right tool for large, time-critical, one-off payments — a property completion, a supplier deposit, a payroll run that can’t slip. The cost (often $15–$50 a side) is easy to justify once; harder to justify a thousand times. And because a mistyped account number can send money you can’t retrieve, verify-before-pay isn’t optional at this speed.
How Fynex does it
Fynex reserves wires for payouts where same-day finality earns the fee, and checks payee details before the money leaves — verify-before-pay — so a fast rail doesn’t turn a typo into a permanent loss. It routes routine payments over cheaper rails like ACH. See payouts.