The US banking system has not adapted to the modern world at all. Anyone who has worked with ACH will tell you how bad it is from a payment processing point of view - for those who don't know - you only receive negative ack, i.e., when a transfer failed and it's nowhere close to being instantaneous. It's common elsewhere to have a "read" password and a "write" password. Basically, you'll be prompted with additional security measures when you are doing a transfer. Also, the details I give out to somebody to receive money is the same details someone needs to take money out from my account. What the US banks have is a "digital" cheque processing system and not a digital banking system.

It's antiquated.