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Does anyone know the cause of the large and long standing difference in banking in US vs Europe? In europe: -for 15 or so years already, web banking has been

• viraptor 9y ago
  > between european bank accounts is free Between European bank accounts in the same country. Also, not every European country, unfortunately. > paper cheques don't exist since over a decade They still do. They're very rarely used, but they can be useful for cases where you want to buy something like a car without changing the card limits.
  • distances 9y ago
    > Between European bank accounts in the same country. Also, not every European country, unfortunately. As far as I know, it's free between all Eurozone countries. At least I regularly do transactions between countries, and I've never heard it costing a cent.
    • kilburn 9y ago
      Transfers can be charged, and often are even within the same country. In Spain it is common to have "up to n monthly transfers for free, then you get charged x%". Also, I've received wrong payments on a German account from French people many times, and they claim it's because their bank charges the transaction and I receive the sent amount minus fees, with no possibilities for them to specify otherwise (that's happened with dozens of different clients, so I'm very inclined to believe them).
      • distances 9y ago
        > bank charges the transaction and I receive the sent amount minus fees Sounds like horrible UX -- how would people be able to pay their bills correctly if the sent value doesn't equal the received value?
        • kilburn 9y ago
          It is really terrible. We currently solve it by charging them the missing amount via credit card when this happens.
        • raverbashing 9y ago
          I agree Some banks allow you to specify it it's the receiver, the sender or if the fee should be split
      • nicolas_t 9y ago
        At least both of my banks in France don't charge me anything when doing wire transfer to other European countries. So, I'm not sure how prevalent that is.
  • StavrosK 9y ago
    > Between European bank accounts in the same country. Also, not every European country, unfortunately. Unless I'm mistaken, transfers in Europe are by law required to cost the same inside and out of the country. My Greek bank charges 1 euro for a transfer, no matter if the bank is in Greece or anywhere else in the EU. My German bank doesn't charge anything, and I pay my rent from my German account. > They're very rarely used, but they can be useful for cases where you want to buy something like a car without changing the card limits. None of the banks I have accounts with ever gave me a chequebook. If I want to buy a car, I will transfer the money through SEPA, as normal, for free.
    • viraptor 9y ago
      Interesting. Is this a recent change? I paid £10 for transfer from Lloyds 5y ago.
      • StavrosK 9y ago
        I think that was because it cost money to transfer between SWIFT and SEPA. SEPA to SEPA is very cheap/free, and so is SWIFT to SWIFT, AFAIK. I haven't tried to send money between the two systems for a long time.
    • alsetmusic 9y ago
      > None of the banks I have accounts with ever gave me a chequebook. We have to request them and pay a small fee for them. They aren’t typically issued when you open the account. You just receive a debit card. Exceptions may exist. This is only my experience.
      • StavrosK 9y ago
        Oh, I'm sure you can get them somehow, I'm just saying that they're so rare that no bank gives them out by default (nor have I ever seen one or know what to do with it).
        • sverhagen 9y ago
  • pedrosorio 9y ago
    > Between European bank accounts in the same country. Also, not every European country, unfortunately. Currently there are 34 countries in the SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Euro_Payments_Area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Euro_Payments_Area SEPA rules specify that you cannot charge more for transfers between different countries than you would for a local transfer. https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/financial-products-and-services/payments-transfers-cheques/index_en.htm https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/financial-pr... "If the payment is in euros or Swedish krona, they should not charge you more than they would for a national transaction of the same value in euros.
    • germanier 9y ago
      Note that this rule doesn't apply to the whole SEPA area. Switzerland is a notorious exception, Euro SEPA transfers to there often incur a charge.
      • juergbi 9y ago
        Euro SEPA transfers between Switzerland and EU are typically free. At least the major Swiss banks don't charge anything extra. International transfers in other currencies (e.g., CHF, GBP) still incur a fee, though.
        • germanier 9y ago
          The same applies to most German banks in the other direction but this is by business decision and not by law. Thus some banks do charge a fee for that.
          • hocuspocus 9y ago
            You should use another bank. I've never heard of anything like that when I was living in Germany (I used Comdirect and N26, lots of my coworkers recommended DKB and ING DiBa also).
• exelius 9y ago
  US banks really hate being required to spend money on things, so they lobby the government against any stringent regulation.
  • craftyguy 9y ago
    Well, those hefty executive bonuses aren't going to fund themselves!
• zkms 9y ago
  > maybe a slow cobol mainframe somewhere Inter-bank money transfers in US are handled by a system that needs multiple "business days" for a transaction to be finalised so you're on the money here: https://engineering.gusto.com/how-ach-works-a-developer-perspective-part-3/ https://engineering.gusto.com/how-ach-works-a-developer-pers...
  • Aardwolf 9y ago
    Oh european banks also like to keep the money for a day. Other than that day of interest it's free though :) no 25 dollar wiring fee as seen in US
    • germanier 9y ago
      Is it still that slow? Since a few months 95% of my transactions between Germany, the Netherlands and the UK (EUR account) happen the same day. It's not like banks actually can earn interest right now anyway. If anything it costs them to hold money currently.
      • visarga 9y ago
        It probably happens same day only if you send the transfer early in the morning.
        • germanier 9y ago
          Yes, I forgot to mention that the cutoff now seems to be at around 2pm for most banks (it was much earlier even recently). Transfers after that usually show up on the next day but the value date is often the sending date. I don't do transactions after 6pm or so, therefore no experience that late. All of this only applies to banking days, no transactions get processed on the weekend.
        • Semaphor 9y ago
          Yeah, lately my international transfers (Germany -> UK -> South Africa) have been taking less than a day all in all if I send the money before noon.
• Klonoar 9y ago
  My Japanese bank (UFJ, and Shinsei... I think, haven't touched it in forever) did this long before the USA as well.
• MistahKoala 9y ago
  > "wiring" money between european bank accounts is free (and not called wiring, not sure what in english though) Transferring? That's how it's referred to in my family and social groups.
• nitwit005 9y ago
  It's not a US vs Europe thing. There have been past incidents with Korean websites asking what city you were born in, and since the Seoul area has half the population, that worked for roughly half the users.
  • Aardwolf 9y ago
    True, South Korea is also something special... everyone was required to have internet explorer with activeX for a very long time there to do banking and online shopping
    • kuschku 9y ago
      The alternative to that would have been no SSL at all. The US required that all exported crypto would be limited, so South Korea instead built their own crypto. And browsers couldn't implement that themselves (also due to export regulations), so South Korea had to implement it as plugin for the then most-used browsers, which was mostly IE.
      • Denvercoder9 9y ago
        The US doesn't limit exported crypto anymore since 2000, and South Korea was still using the ActiveX-based solution as late as last year.
        • kuschku 9y ago
          Actually, the US still partially restrict it (I as a German had to file dozens of forms with the US DoD due to that already), but you are correct, TLS up to 1.3 is entirely public worldwide. But obviously, by 2000, many sites were already using the South Korean crypto, and deprecating it would be just as complicated as deprecating TLS 1.0 or SHA1 TLS Certificates in the US. The browser vendors consider that impossible — the South Korean situation is just as problematic.
• iak8god 9y ago
  I don't know about the cause, but I just want to say that it's extremely frustrating and at least a little distressing to deal with US banks in 2017 that don't offer proper 2FA, with SMS being the highest security option.
• BjoernKW 9y ago
  While most of those points generally are true I'd say that banking in Europe is only marginally better. They still have weird, mostly paper-based processes and decades-old mainframes (though that's not necessarily a bad thing). Not long ago the 2nd factor consisted of a paper slip with enumerated transaction numbers. You'd have a hard time finding a bank that allows you to easily export data to accounting software. APIs accessible to customers are something unheard of. All that nagging aside, a reason for US banks being even more stuck in the 70s might be the success of credit cards. Until the mid-90s hardly anyone used those in Europe and they're still not all that common, which in turn means that most cashless payments happen via some sort of card issued by banks directly.
  • contrarian_ 9y ago
    I'm using ING DiBa in Germany and they lack a secure 2fa method. There are only two options available: - SMS-TAN, which is vulnerable to SS7 hijacking and name spoofing. - Index-TAN, aka the enumerated paper slip, which is only "pseudo two-factor": If you computer is pwned, it can ask you for the index matching the attacker's desired transaction.
    • BjoernKW 9y ago
      ING DiBa offers banking apps for both iOS and Android, which can also serve as 2FA for online banking via the browser. The main banking app itself isn't all that good but the 2FA feature works fine.
      • contrarian_ 9y ago
        Can't use those with HBCI. Also, I really wouldn't want my Android phone to serve as a single factor authentication method.
  • davidw 9y ago
    Yeah, it's kind of weird. The positive things mentioned are definitely true, but some stuff that drove me batty in Italy: * Your bank account is attached to a specific bank branch. Even after we moved across town, we always had to return there, like spawning salmon. Moving it seemed like we were asking them to give their children up for adoption. * The hours they were open were bad even by Italian standards. * Lots of little fees and things. Credit cards cost actual money to possess; compared to the US where you get money back if you use one sensibly.
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• closeparen 9y ago
  Online banking isn’t a serious attack vector for fraud, it’s just a faster-updating alternative to a paper monthly statement. 2FA is a silly red herring in these discussions. The problem is fundamentally the transaction model where you pull money from someone’s account simply by knowing some widely-shared secret numbers. These systems are sticky due to network effects. There’s no reason to sign up for an alternative to Visa/MC or ACH when your counterparties aren’t going to.
  • mindslight 9y ago
    Perversely, initiating an ACH credit is apparently seen as more risky than receiving an ACH debit. I believe this is ultimately due to the originator being responsible for any transaction that turns out to be fraudulent. In general I think the US is comfortable to limp along putting band-aids on broken systems, because the failings are seen as being intrinsic to the "natural state" of things (see also: common law and court precedent reigning), and the losses are ultimately sustainable. The possibility of a fraudulent transaction can never be eliminated, so therefore it's whatever party facilitates/blesses the transaction that fully bears the responsibility. Meanwhile the EU doesn't seem afraid to create new foundational semantics - eg get rid of the concept of "pulling" money, and then dictate that banks cannot charge customers for the equivalent of initiating an ACH push [0]. [0] Bank of America actually charges for this. They also charge for walk-in cashing of checks drawn on themselves - meaning they are inducing their own customers to write fraudulent checks!
    • closeparen 9y ago
      No one is eating the risk, it's simply priced in as a 2-3% sales tax paid to the credit card network ecosystem.
      • mindslight 9y ago
        I was referring to ACH, not credit cards. Also, something you said in a related comment: > tiny proportion of the most technologically sophisticated banks provide the ability to transfer money to any arbitrary person My experience is that every US bank has an "external account" transfer feature (for use with your other accounts) that can initiate ACH credits or debits, as well as a "Bill Pay" that will do ACH credits to any routing/account number. But (as I alluded to) banks limit the dollar amount of transactions initiated through them, as they are responsible for cleaning up any mess due to "fraud".
• uiri 9y ago
  (and not called wiring, not sure what in english though) Giro is I think the standard English term for this although it is rarely used because it is a push system while (particularly in North America) banking systems in the Anglophone world typically use cheques which are pull based. Even coming from Canada, I was rather surprised at how ancient the US banking system is. Like it was stuck in the 80s for 2-3 decades. They are only now rolling out chip cards and frequently it is chip and sign rather than chip and PIN.
  • gaius 9y ago
    Not heard the term Giro in years, not since people stopped using the Post Office for banking services.
    • teh_klev 9y ago
      Just had a flashback to "Boys From The Black Stuff" [0]. [0]: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083689 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083689
• shas3 9y ago
  Wow exactly the situation in india! We’ve had 2FA, mobile alerts, etc. ever since the dawn of the Internet banking in late 90s. Wasn’t so in the US even as recently as 2010.
  • billfruit 9y ago
    But in other respects things are stuck in the past in India too, like your account being tightly coupled to a particular branch of the bank, and many commercial establishments charging extra for card transactions.
    • doikor 9y ago
      The charges still exist even if the end user doesn’t pay them. If you don’t then the shop/restaurant has decided to pay the fees (depending on country this can be mandated by law or just a custom to do it one way or the other)
    • rrrazdan 9y ago
      I have banked with five different banks (private and public) and have never had to face the tight coupling with a particular branch that you talk about? Indian banking system is actually a joy to use compared to the first world systems that I have seen.
• frankydp 9y ago
  A wire transfer(IBAN/BIC transfer) is different from an ACH transfer. ACH(EFTS in EU) in the US is generally free, but has a delay for clearing and has some mechanisms for reversal. This is primarily a digital check, and can be initiated by the receiver in that way. A wire transfer is nearly immediate by comparison and offers almost no option for reversal. This option does usually have a fee and is generally reserved for large purchase transfers and emergency situations were verification of receipt is required. Such as buying a house. These transfers are processed via Fedwire inside the US and SWIFT out. The guideline in the EU is that interstate can not cost more than intrastate, so most went to 0.
  • ChemicalWarfare 9y ago
    >> but has a delay for clearing... not only is there an ODFI-clearing house - RDFI delay caused by the actual "clearing" process - the whole flow starting from the merchant->payment processor step is a sequence of nightly batches with cutoff times factored in to boot. from the merchant perspective, however, ACH payment is cheaper to process than a credit card payment and is way less likely to end up in a chargeback.
    • doomlaser 9y ago
      debit card transactions are all ACH then?
      • jacobolus 9y ago
        No. ACH is the digital equivalent of depositing a paper check. The debit networks are what you use to withdraw money from an ATM, and require entering a PIN, but most debit cards nowadays can also operate through credit card networks.
      • ChemicalWarfare 9y ago
        debit cards(not to be confused with bank cards) are closer to credit cards than ACH. in some cases - for example "signature debit" vs "pin debit" - just about identical from the flow perspective. which is why you can use debit cards in most situations where you would use a credit card where instant check of funds availability and hold is required - e.g. hotel incidentals etc.
• whyever 9y ago
  Paper cheques do exist in Germany.
  • maxxxxx 9y ago
    I lived in Germany for 30 years and never had used a paper check before I came to the US. What are they used for?
    • germanier 9y ago
      Insurance companies and paper magazine publishers like using them for payouts. I know an eccentric person that also uses them. When I cashed such a check the eyes of the employee lit up and it was shown around among the tellers after asking if that's ok (which is a bit out of the ordinary as they usually act very discreet and professional) so I'd say that's a rare thing.
  • jmuguer 9y ago
    They are used in France a lot. I bought my car with one, and my family doctor only accepts cash or checks.
• lathiat 9y ago
  Australia is fairly similar to this. Particularly the fee free transfers between banks (for both private and business) What’s interesting is that next year most of the banks seem to be launching an instant bank transfer system - big interbank implementation. Right now it takes generally 1 business day if you’ve transacted with that account before and 3 business days if you haven’t. I assume that’s some kind of anti fraud but not 100% sure.
  • shakna 9y ago
    CommBank and NAB spear-headed instant transactions. CommBank dropped an absolute mint on it, with a goal of sub-second transactions, with decent fraud protection. After a bunch of talks between the big banks, and VISA and MasterCard, and a little bit to do with the ombudsmen from various government branches, it was decided to share out that architecture, including fraud protection. The fraud protection is actually really good, and thanks to actual cooperation between the banks, reimbursement is a fairly likely scenario.
    • nickonline 9y ago
      None of the banks really wanted instant transactions, it's expensive, the RBA essentially forced them to.
      • willvarfar 9y ago
        Big win for consumers and businesses then.
  • vadimberman 9y ago
    Australia may not be known as a banking superpower but it has the most user-friendly, affordable, efficient financial infrastructure of all the places I lived in. There's the most kickass Bill Pay system ever and DEFT, which allows paying by several methods including the credit card, potentially gaining reward points for paying rent. (Reward credit cards may be pricey though.) Overseas wire cost a measly flat AU$20 a few years ago in WestPac, local transfer was free and quick to a low-risk recipient (and most recipients are reasonable enough to go on with a transaction if you send them a PDF proving you sent the money). If you run a business, your company account can be accessed via the same customer ID. Suspicious transactions are spotted and the bank calls you if they suspect foul play; the false alarms are rare. Fraudulent transactions (at least minor) are reversed - happened to me once and to my wife several times. No US-like secrecy for bank account numbers, you normally publish your bank account for the people to make transfer to. Tokens are used for business accounts, while the consumers don't have to bother with these. There's generally no banking fee unless the account is dormant, and then it's about $5 or something (not $20 - $40 like in the US or Singapore). Nobody uses cheques, obviously (although they do exist). In terms of foreign currency transfer, there is also OFX, a nifty service where you can keep your incoming funds until the exchange is more favourable (nope, Transferwise doesn't have it), and that charges you the fraction of what the banks take.
• csours 9y ago
  My previous credit union had a default password of the last 4 of my Social Security number (the least secure digits of a completely insecure number). You were not required to change the password before using online banking. The maximum length of the password was 4 characters (thankfully you could use letters, numbers and special characters).
• ljk 9y ago
  > 2nd factor authentication unless your phone is compromised
• perseusprime11 9y ago
  Not just our banking, but same applies to our education, healthcare, transportation, etc
• johnnyb9 9y ago
  - We don't use 2FA authentication, I guess because there are more cost effective ways of verifying our identity (probably not going to last much longer with all the breaches) - ACH in the USA is free and fast (one business day)... and that's the main way of receiving salary, paying bills, etc. Is Europe really any better in this regard? - No one uses paper checks here either...
  • delinhabit 9y ago
    The piece about paper checks is not entirely true. I still use paper checks to pay for the daycare and a couple other services. I find it annoying, but a lot of businesses still rely on paper checks.
  • sverhagen 9y ago
    Not true. If you get any kind of refund on your Wells Fargo credit card, and you want to move it to your checking account, they send you a check by snail mail, which you then deposit. If you use Bill Pay to a recipient that isn't one of the few companies they have electronic clearing with, they make you enter a physical address, for... right, mailing them the check. There is no universal system advertised by the banks I've been with to send money electronically between consumers. If I want to pay my homeowners association's dues (which, coincidentally, I am in charge of, too) I have to use a check. All the above thus includes two scenarios where I essentially end up sending a paper check to myself. I'm European import to the USA, so I may not have figured it all out, but boy, I tried. Edit: Forgot about this one: good luck being a foreigner paying the USA government for your immigration proceedings... right, all paper...
  • meddlepal 9y ago
    People still uses paper checks all the time here in the US. Maybe not for small things but... - Rent payments to independent land lords are generally via a mailed check. - Some monthly bill payments aren't doable online. - Transferring money to people. - Large purchases.
  • henrikschroder 9y ago
    > ACH in the USA is free and fast (one business day) One business day is slow. Not as ridiculously slow as the three business day arbitrary bullshit, but still slow. Why aren't the transfers instant? There's no reason for them not to be. > Is Europe really any better in this regard? Oh god yes. Europe has had Giro for a long time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giro https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giro Every bill comes with a receiving account number, and where I'm from all bills have been using a standardized OCR-friendly format since the 80's, which means that the payment slip of every bill is identical, which means that when we got internet banking in the mid 90's, you would just type in the numbers from the standardized fields at the bottom row of the bill to set it up. Of course, you've been able to sign up for automatic bill payment since the 90's as well, and on the off chance that you get a bill from someone you normally aren't billed by, all mobile banking apps have the option of using your phone camera to OCR the bill and pay it. Whereas in the US, sure, most large companies can do automatic ACH withdrawal, but most small companies can't. And if you get an actual bill, no two bills look the same, so you have to figure out what the amount is and where it goes, and you only get the physical address of the receiving company, so if they aren't able to receive ACH tranfers for whatever ridiculous reason, your bank has to mail them a check, which takes five days, for some other ridiculous reason, so you have to make sure the money leaves your account five business days before the due date. (Giro payments are, of course, instant) > No one uses paper checks here either... It is possible to never write a check in the US, but it's actually pretty hard. There's a ton of systems and companies and organizations that require you to use checks. I had to pay my apartment building org $50 for reserving the moving elevator for a whole day. Payment by check only. I had to pay the final amount for my moving company when they showed up with my furniture. Cashier's checks only. Oh, and cash tips for the movers. Do you know what I had to do to get a cashier's check? I went to my bank, and I had to WRITE THEM A CHECK for the amount on the cashier's check + their fee, for them to be able to take money out of my account and give me a cashier's check. It's absolutely fucking ridiculous, and noone there saw anything weird about it. When you move to the US, you cannot file your taxes electronically the first year, and you cannot pay electronically either. So you have to write a check to the IRS. I had to google that shit the first time, I had never written a check in my entire life before that. I'm renting my apartment from an individual, and she expects a check in the mail every month. Now, I've set it up to pay automatically through my bank, but my bank actually prints and mails her a check. Ridiculous. The complete and utter shittiness of banks in the US is, for most Americans, an unknown unknown. You don't know it's shit, and you don't know how shitty it is, because you've never experienced non-shitty banks. Since you have nothing good to compare them with, you don't do the comparison, and you don't expect them to not be shitty. I mean, look at you, you have complete goddamn Stockholm syndrome above where you think a one business day transfer is fast! (Sorry for the rant, I'm not angry at you, I'm just so frustrated with how shitty shit shit American banks are, and that they never seem to improve.)
• easytiger 9y ago
  > -"wiring" money between european bank accounts is free (and not called wiring, not sure what in english though), for as long as I remember. It's not some special type of transaction, it's the main way to pay bills, get salary, pay each other, ... Many business accounts in Europe do charge per transaction however
  • nofilter 9y ago
    You mean SEPA transfer?
• ascorbic 9y ago
  I'm pretty sure all UK banks use multi factor now (mostly card readers and mobile apps), but they certainly weren't like that from their inception. I didn't encounter multi factor for at least five years after my first web-based account. They were all terrible combinations of passwords, secret questions and entering three characters from another password. I remember being fascinated by the multi factor token that my Swedish friends had in th the early 2000s. The last UK account that I had without any form of multi factor auth was probably about five years ago. Bank transfers have always been free. Previously these were called BACS, and took three days. Now they're "faster payments" and are effectively instant. Bills are paid by Direct Debit, which is a pull system, which sounds scary but generally works well.
  • tonyedgecombe 9y ago
    TSB are still lagging, presumably Lloyds is as well as I understand they share systems.
• pvinis 9y ago
  I'm not going to comment on all the issues you listed, only for the last part. I think it's a grass-is-greener thing, and you see the bad stuff for one side and the good for the other. There are banks in Europe too, that suck. I had an account in Bank Austria. The username was a number they gave you, and the password had to be exactly 5 numbers. There was a place in the FAQ somewhere that said you can put any password you want, as long as it starts with 5 numbers, and the reason for that is that only these first numbers are taken into account, because of legacy mobile banking (as in, banking from your mobile via sms).
• croisillon 9y ago
  wiring money between european bank accounts is not necessarily free but banks that have fees for wiring within the EU must have the same fees nationally, so as a result many bank prefer to drop the fees altogether
• xxs 9y ago
  Mostly correct: >>...No backup questions at all. I guess you go to the bank's office if you forget it? True, then use personalId (or passport in case the account is in a different country), change the wee-calculator thing/reset of the phoneId app also requires visit to a bank office. Some banks support national identity system (Estonia, Latvia for instance). >>"wiring" money between european bank accounts is free this is not necessary true, and it's not 'european' but eurozone (which is different). The fee is domestic within the EU zone and depends on the bank agreement, e.g. it can 0.5e or even free
• walshemj 9y ago
  Some of the early politicians nd early presidents (jackson) had some odd ideas about central banks and Jackson in particular actually caused considerable financial problems. Also private banks did not like being regulated by a central bank
• ThomPete 9y ago
  There is no such thing as an international wiretransfer. Instead what you have is a set of agreements between gateway banks in each country allowing for the money to be made available from one country to another. Other than that it's mainly consumer protection and the EU attempts to standarize everyhting vs. US less restrictive and more, leave it to the market to establish standards. For historical context the Europe had a head start when it came to mobile with their implementation of the GSM standard where as the US was mostly left to find a winner between competing standards. The EU have not specific advantage to the US today on the contrary one might say. So basically what you have is a EU who are forcing standards down on countries vs. a US which let the markets mostly figure things out by themselves.
  • pluma 9y ago
    But it seems the standards forced down by the EU resulted in a faster, more efficient system? As a private individual or person doing business in the EU I don't have to care about the different gateways in various EU countries or the difference between ACH and wire. I just make a transfer via online banking or authorize a SEPA Direct Debit withdrawal by ticking a checkbox in an online shop. There's zero friction. Whether the transaction is completed instantly or within a business day usually doesn't matter much. There's no faffing about with paper cheques (because seriously what century is this) and I don't have to talk to any humans to do it. Rent and utilities are deducted from my bank account every month until I revoke the authorisation. Watching American sitcoms with mom or dad poring over a stack of bills and writing cheques seems like a flashback to the 1950s.
    • ThomPete 9y ago
      I don't think so. The EU isn't better off than the US when it comes to cellphone standards as such and it certainly haven't made them any better at building successful companies. EU is trying to solve a bunch of things through legislation which the market should be solving on it it's own.
      • TeMPOraL 9y ago
• chx 9y ago
  I was born Hungarian but now I am Canadian (hurray!) and this difference in banking totally baffles and irritates me to no end. Rietumu in Latvia ten plus years ago already was using not just those hopping code authentication devices but also client side SSL certificates (at least for small business accounts, I never had a personal with them). Extremely secure but I wonder how well the generic public would deal with that.
• tnolet 9y ago
  Paper cheques are still super common in at least France and Germany.
  • endymi0n 9y ago
    I'm German and I've seen maybe two paper cheques in my entire life.
  • hocuspocus 9y ago
    In France yes, they are an exception (with the UK too maybe). But in Germany banks don't issue chequebooks anymore.
    • Amezarak 9y ago
      They don't issue checkbooks at all, or you just don't get a bunch of free ones when you sign up? Most American banks that I know of don't give you any either, anymore, just a debit card, but you can get them if you want them.
      • hocuspocus 9y ago
        Modern banks really don't. In Germany you truly have no use for cheques anymore. SEPA works both ways (wire transfers and direct debit from your account are free for you and very cheap for business accounts). While for instance in France, Orange launched their own bank recently, they're 100% mobile, yet you can request a checkbook (for free, afaik they cannot legally charge you).
        • Amezarak 9y ago
          It's free to send money to other bank accounts in the US, too, and in some cases instantaneous, in no case I know of longer than a couple days. The problem isn't that the infrastructure isn't there - it is. Older people and a few stodgy institutions rely on checks, but that's not because they have to. In Germany, what do people without bank accounts do? In the US, there's a lot of these people, but you (or their employer) can still give them a check and they can cash it at a check-cashing business (ugh) or the bank it was issued from.
• HoyaSaxa 9y ago
  There are three main reasons: (1) a huge long tail of financial institutions and (2) an incredibly strong enforcement and justice system, and (3) a lack of new financial institutions. The United States has around 40x more financial institutions than the United Kingdom (8x when adjusting for population differences). The US has such a long tail of financial institutions because of regulatory and market forces. The US regulators/lawmakers have traditionally provided incentives for smaller financial institutions because of the belief that they fill a very important role in powering our diverse economic engine (a belief I hold as well). This has made change harder to impose and coordinate. Most United States payment schemes are inherently insecure. Both checks and ACHs simply require the routing number, account number, and name on the account. There is no concept of a one-time use token. So why is the US not plagued with fraud? Our enforcement and justice systems are perhaps the strongest in the world. The secret service and FBI devote an incredible amount of resources to investigating financial fraud, and punishments are typically harsh. Finally, the lack of new bank charters granted by the regulators (especially post 2008) has reduced competition and innovation in the space. Banks are able to levy high fees as a result. The amount lost to fraud each year is generally more than covered by these fees (with the exception of small financial institutions) so there is not a strong incentive for change.
• tscs37 9y ago
  >I guess you go to the bank's office if you forget it? Yup. An account reset requires a visit to the bank and you'll get the new password mailed to you via postal service and you'll be required (usually) to immediately pick a new password upon first login. >and not called wiring, not sure what in english though SEPA Credit Transfer. Beginning next year banks will also test and deploy an instant transfer variant of this. >Today mobile auth apps are taking over. Mobile apps are indeed a lot more popular these days but a second factor is still employed. SMS 2FA is being phased out (atleast in germany) and current alternatively are either having a list of TAN codes, optical TAN generator or a proper Card reader on your PC. I think this is in large part due to, atleast in germany, banks being liable for all damages if they can't prove their system is reasonably secure. This makes some parts of account management a PITA since you need to show up at their local branch office but tbh, it's much better than the US.
• lowbloodsugar 9y ago
  America is the best. Therefore if Europe does something different, then it must be worse. Hah, no, US banking is absolutely in the dark ages. When I first came here they didn't have debit cards FFS. I had to carry a check book and write on it with a pen. They've only just got chip and pin!
• SllX 9y ago
  Whenever I had to go to the bank for whatever reason, I would check out the teller's desks while they were working on my transaction. It passed the time, but it was pretty interesting. At least at that time, at that bank branch, a typical teller's desk included: 1 Dell desktop and accompanying monitor, 1 automatic bill counter, 1 desk calculator, 1 check reader, probably a few pens and some with cute designs on them, a few stationery holders for various slips, forms, notices and marketing materials. All in all, pretty boring affair, but near as I can tell banks are basically stuffy offices from the 80s. Just swap out the Dell for I dunno, an IBM PC or an Apple //.
• qw 9y ago
  In Norway the banks started using 2F in the late 90s I think. I remember sheets of paper with codes that were only used once. Each action (login or transfer) would prompt for a specific number that had to be entered. Fortunately they changed to electronic tokens in the early 2000s