Why do some bank transfers take so long?

[Morgweather26]

I booked a service with a company and decided to cancel it and so asked for a refund. They agreed to refund me and processed the refund but said that it would take 10-14 working days to appear in my bank.

I don’t understand why it would take so long as opposed to instantly arriving like how when I initially sent them the money via bank transfer, they immediately received it.

Why does it sometimes take so long?

I pay compensation as part of my job and get asked this question a lot. In our case, the team have to put the payment into the system, then I have to log in and approve it, then depending on the amount it might need to be approved again by someone more senior than me, then it goes over to the finance team. Not sure what their exact process is, but I assume it has several steps and approvals like ours. So it's far from an instant transaction!