Originally Posted by Nathan

All americans have to understand the problem everyone outside of north america faces with checks:

1) They are sent by mail, which takes at least 3 days to get to europe for example
2) Once the check is there, the bank takes at least 48 hours to credit the money, if not longer.
3) Once the money is credited, european banks usually keep it blocked for around 3-6 weeks, because US law says a check can be canceled after it is deposited (even if no bank in the US even does or allows it, which I am not sure about, it's a law, eu banks do not give a rats ass what the banks actually do)
4) A US check costs at least 25 EUR to deposit in a normal EU bank.

All europeans have to understand that the problems of cost for us with checks is like for americans with wires.

Some general false information in this thread:
1) SEPA transfers are NOT FREE!!! The rule is not that they have to be FREE. The rule is that they can not cost more than inner-country wires!!! Sure, most banks in europe charge 0 for inner-country wires to individuals, but that does not make SEPA transfers always free.
2) SEPA transfers are allowed to take up to 3 days. EUE Transfers though take around 45 minutes in the EU considering cut of times (usually around 3-4pm), but cost money. But usually not much more than 5-10 EUR regardless of the amount.
3) Banking systems in the various different countries in europe defer greatly. A wire inside Belgium usually takes just a few hours to receive. A wire inside Germany up to 3 days if not longer.
4) An international wire transfer usually does NOT go directly from bank to bank! In case of the SWIFT system it goes via the SWIFT network and gets routed accordingly. In case of non-SWIFT it often takes even longer.
5) A SWIFT wire especially to banks in the US usually goes for correspondance banks and not directly between the banks, unless it's major players. For example a wire from Deutsche Bank to Wachovia in the US usually goes from Deutsche Bank branch to Deutsche Bank Frankfurt to Bank of America NYC/Wallstreet and then to Wachovia.

The international banking system in general sucks ass, and sadly there are no perfect solutions for worldwide wires. It will get there at some point though, I am sure.