⁠⁠The $900 million wire that wasn't final

Patrick McKenzie (patio11) reads his 2022 Bits about Money essay "Finality does not exist in payments." It argues that how final a payment is depends on the rails, the parties, and the governing law, not on the payment method alone. He explains why the reversibility of credit cards is what made internet commerce possible. He also covers the "hold harmless," the brief phone call between operations staff that quietly unwinds wire mistakes every day. He then applies the essay to Citibank's 2020 accidental wire of nearly $900 million to Revlon's lenders: a district court let recipients keep about $500 million before an appeals court reversed it. He closes with how the UK, India, and Japan have each tried, with mixed results, to make fraudulent instant payments less final.

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Full transcript available here: https://www.complexsystemspodcast.com/the-900m-wire-that-wasnt-final/

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Links:

(Source essay) Finality does not exist in payments: https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/no-payments-are-final/

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