With the current state of our tech, we’re fairly used to instant gratification. We get everything from information to goods delivery instantaneously. Unfortunately, this can’t be said about international bank transactions. They still typically take place over 1 to 4 business days. This can be frustrating, given it can have tangible effects like a direct impact on your cash flow cycles. It is difficult to ascertain when you can complete your transaction, but like many other things, these delays are part and parcel of business.

But there are some reasons which could feel like a hindrance to your transactions as they could be factors of international banking transaction delay.

  • Global events like pandemics: The pandemic hasn’t left even a single industry or person safe and away from its web. Similar events would mean a shortage of presence of staff given the situations. Consequently, this could lead to a significant delay in your banking transactions to process.
  • Bank holidays: Usually the definition of business days considers the weekends and the notified holidays as part of non-operation. Some countries especially the ones based on the Islamic calendar, consider Friday and Saturday as their weekends rather than Saturday-Sunday. Further, bank holidays and other notified holidays vary from region to region which might delay your transactions to be processed. For example, in India, the second and fourth Saturdays of the month plus Sundays are notified bank holidays in addition to other public holidays.
  • Time Zone difference: Countries having significant time zone differences experience a major effect of this factor. Since there is a possibility that when one nation sleeps, another wakes up, the transaction processing would take place in that manner. For example, the difference of time between India and the US is around 10-12 hours which means that your transaction would hold on for at least that amount of time.
  • Fraud Prevention: Transactions passing through the SWIFT network require them to pass through up to three correspondent banks as a measure of fraud detection and prevention before reaching their destination. This can certainly delay your processing of funds for a significant amount of time.
  • Incorrect or incomplete information: Imagine a transaction going through several hours and nodes of the network, completing fraud prevention checks and measures only to be detected as having incorrect or incomplete information and then sent back to you. It can be a cause of massive delay. Sometimes, there is a possibility of human error as well on the other side of the world as well which might require a different or an additional kind of documentation. For example, China asks for the proof of legality of the source of income for which one needs to send or attach another set of documentation. In extreme cases, your documents could be lost by one of the employees at the intervening banks.
  • Currency conversion: Processing times are increased when your payment is to be first converted into another currency before reaching you or your clients to whom you are sending the funds. This happens due to the involvement of other legalities and consequent processes which have to be undertaken.
  • Time of transfer: In case the transfer takes place at the end of the day, it would be processed only on the next business day. Also if the transfer takes place just before a weekend or holiday, it will be processed only after that.

Transactions delay are always a cause of worry after you finally get a platform to process your funds for it. Salt provides businesses with a one-stop portal to execute and manage payments, collections, and expenses worldwide. A User experience that is stitched together ensures that you save considerable amounts of time and resources, even while managing multiple accounts and payment and collection payouts in real-time worldwide, without any hassles. Salt is where you get all your financial solutions on one platform.

Salt is a neo-banking experience catering to international businesses while specializing in cross-border payments and banking services. It aims to create an accessible and seamless experience for everyone while managing software and solutions for your problems.