Buy bitcoin with Local bank transfer

What is Local bank transfer?

A local bank transfer moves money between two accounts inside a single country's own payment system, with no correspondent bank and no currency conversion. The scheme is national and different everywhere: SEPA credit transfers and SEPA Instant in the euro area, FedNow and ACH in the United States, Pix in Brazil. The BIS counts fast payment systems live in more than 100 jurisdictions, and the FedNow Service, operated by the Federal Reserve since July 2023, runs a 24 hour business day every day including weekends and holidays. For someone funding an exchange in their own currency this is normally the cheapest option.

Speed

Instant rails settle in seconds, and the ECB requires euro instant credit transfers to reach the payee within ten seconds, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, while older batch transfers still take one or two business days.

Cost

Domestic transfers are free or close to free for consumers in most countries, and in the euro area the Instant Payments Regulation forbids charging more for an instant credit transfer than for a standard one.

Limits

The scheme ceiling is usually far higher than what you can actually send, because your own bank applies its own lower per transfer and daily limits on top of it.

Speed and cost describe the rail itself. What an exchange adds on top varies by platform and is shown per exchange below.

Caveats by country

Where Local bank transfer exists but comes with strings attached, straight from the country research.

Bosnia and Herzegovina

domestic KM transfer to BCX

Chad

limited by the COBAC ban

South Korea

tied to one designated partner bank per exchange

South Sudan

limited reach