I don't think you fully grokked the article. With cheques, the buyer gives the seller their bank account info and notes how much the seller should take out. Wit

I don't think you fully grokked the article. With cheques, the buyer gives the seller their bank account info and notes how much the seller should take out. With giro, the seller gives the buyer the bank account information, and the buyer decides how much to send to the seller. I don't see why this couldn't be done online, so "GO"ing to the bank isn't an issue. 1) I consider this a bug: checks are inefficient enough that people can put you at risk while appearing to pay on time by giving you a check they can't honor at that time. It's debatable, but I'll give you that giro would not have this "feature." 2) You still control when the vendor gets paid. In fact, you control it more directly. With checks, you give the check then you have to pretend that amount of money is out of your account until the person holding the check decides to cash it. With giro you send the money exactly when you want to, and the money goes to them directly. 3) This is a potential point, but what is stopping us from using "reverse cheques" for the same purpose? 4) This also doesn't apply. We're not talking about cards, we're talking about reverse cheques.