We were one of the few households in Germany that had BTX, the German equivalent of Minitel. It wasn't free but pretty affordable and had some very useful servi

We were one of the few households in Germany that had BTX, the German equivalent of Minitel. It wasn't free but pretty affordable and had some very useful services. Since banking in Germany never heavily relied on checks everyone was already using direct bank account transfers for payments as long as I can remember, certainly in the 80s. You filled out a standard machine readable slip and dropped it off at your bank and the transfer would happen immediately. I frequently used BTX to make payments for things I ordered and I seem to remember having a list of one-time use numbers to enter as a security measure. Must have been some kind of electronic signature. Germany was pretty anti-technology in those days. Instead of hailing early adopters we were frequently criticized as harbingers of a cold and inhumane new world order.