Here's a business banking question. When planning a wire transfer, it's common to get wire instructions in written format, and that should be enough to prevent issues, but it still seems to be an incredibly manual process. Someone types in the numbers, and that person could make a mistake. What happens if the routing or account numbers are entered incorrectly? Is that money just lost? Is there a method to verify the recipient account information matches the business or person you are attempting to send payment to? Is this something you have to phone the local branch to verify, or what?
Also, why is the USA banking system so weird. Seems like even large companies bank at these little local banks that have 5-10 branches, and they are all affiliated to larger banks in some shadowy fashion. Really confusing to a Canadian!