MFW it takes up to two weeks for an international wire transfer to clear.

MFW banks are closed on Sundays.

There's this thing called the internet which lets you make transactions even when your bank is closed. Also, for most purposes it's safer to do credit card purchases than international wires.

Why do you need to send a wire transfer? A giro transfer clears within a few minutes, and a credit card charge is accepted within seconds. What's the use-case that is not acceptably covered by those options?

I'd never heard of a giro transfer. In the states we use ACH and it takes 2-5 days to clear. The ACH numbers are also reusable - your numbers never change, and they can be used for withdrawal as well as deposit.

My point is that this a solved problem worldwide, ACH is slow and inefficient, and checking just piggybacks on ACH.

It's not normal for bank-to-bank transfers to take two weeks to clear in TYOOL 2017. This is a US problem.

How many international wire transfers does a typical person make in their life?

I've made a few, but ironically they were all to the bank accounts of cryptocurrency exchanges when I was funding my account.