I was going to say that as a German writing a check to buy a home feels absurd but given all the other (legal) transactions involved (including taking out a loa

I was going to say that as a German writing a check to buy a home feels absurd but given all the other (legal) transactions involved (including taking out a loan) boil down to signing a lot of paper, I guess it wouldn't even really stand out much. In fact when I took out a loan I had to write out my bank account details by hand, so this was kind of the reverse experience of writing a check. It just feels extremely fussy for regular recurring expenses like rent and utilities. On the other hand, transactions on personal accounts are free with most banks (not so for business accounts but the cost is negligible) so there would be no benefit to doing it that way.