system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Stocks and Bank Transactions.

So I sold stock last Thursday. Why does it take 2 business days for a stock to be sold? Where Crypto and E-payments nowadays take real time. Also I need the money to be wire transfer to international bank. Why does this is not also real-time it will take like 4-7 business days before it will be on my bank account. Why does the transfer not working on weekends? So basically why everything is still slow and why everything can't be done on weekends?
gpt
Just to clarify, the sale happened straight away. What takes two days is the clearance: the actual money moving from the buyer to the seller. The buyer may not even have the money yet and has two days to pony it up.

International transfers are kinda similar: the person does the transfer and the bank could add it to your account straight away. But then you could spend it straight away and then the bank is temporarily out of money because it's still waiting for the money to arrive from the other side of the world.

Note: that can be solved. For example, within the SEPA area transfers are expected to be basically instant (benchmark is <10 seconds IIRC). So a person in Portugal can transfer money to a German account basically instantly. It helps that there is no currency conversion happening, that adds a whole other layer of complexity.

When you pay by credit card, the money is immediately deducted form your card, but it can take days before the merchant gets it.