Comment Re:Just like BitCoin? (Score 1) 292
What the GP is calling a wire transfer isn't what we civilized bankers call EFT, it is the Western Union telegraph-style transfers. You pay Western Union, get a unique ID code and send that to someone else who with that ID code can receive cash from another Western Union office elsewhere in the world. No destination bank account needed. That's what is referred to in literature and old movies as "wiring someone the money"
What we, the non-US bankers, call wire transfers are interbank transfers as you describe. In the old days before internet/ATM banking, you'd fill in a form and the bank would transfer the funds electronically via the dedicated wire links between them. We now call them EFTs because the entire process is electronic. Banks should just scrap all their historically-derived terminology and settle for something simpler.