Speaking for the Netherlands here, though I'm assuming it's the same in most EU countries. > How do people in the UK (or other cheque-less places) deal with t

Speaking for the Netherlands here, though I'm assuming it's the same in most EU countries. > How do people in the UK (or other cheque-less places) deal with the transfer of large amounts of money between private or nearly private parties? Bank transfers. If someone wants to give you money you give them your account number and they can then either transfer money directly to your account from the banks website or if that's too modern you can fill in a slip of paper and mail that to the bank though I don't know how common that even is these days. Do note that an account number is enough for transfering money in, it's not enough for transfering money out. That generally requires at the very least a username/password/one-time-code combination. > All of the shops I've worked for have paid me by check - nobody wants to screw around setting up direct deposit for one or two employees. There's nothing to set up. You ask for an account to deposit the money and that's it. Presumably banks don't feel like receiving money is a security risk. > Several of them pay suppliers by check; suppliers don't want to take the hit on credit card fees. Normal transactions cost €0.20 at most, if a supplier feels that that's too much they probably have other things to worry about. Some companies charge the customer this fee, but still it's not a large amount. I'm not entirely sure on what the costs are of taking money using chip&pin but I'm assuming the costs are roughly in the same ballpark. I've got some nits to pick on the upsides you mention for checks as well: 1) Banking with chip&pin or transfers doesn't require carrying any cash either. I can't recall the last time I had actual money on me and not just a debit card. 2) Fair enough. 3) If a company wants your money they can instruct your bank to send an "acceptgiro" by mail. You fill it in and return it by mail to your bank. The bank from there on out processes the transfer the same way as online transfers. To be fair this does cost €0.50 since it involves all this kerfuffle with scanning in handwritten digits and whatnot. 4) Unless you count getting a business account or collecting account numbers as set-up, neither do bank transfers here. 5) Unless you deal exclusively in transactions that are less than one euro it's generally free to a rounding error here as well. 6) Transfers, once confirmed -- which takes seconds, are definitive. No take backsies. If money needs to go back then that's a separate transaction. It's not the banks job to check if transactions are fair, or if breach of contract has happened. I hope that answers some questions, If not feel free to follow up.