What are the advantages of using Circle or other apps over just transferring money? UK bank transfers are free and instant, I can't see what an app could add to that?
Ripple was also issued a Bitlicense[3] recently, but their virtual currency is not bitcoin. Haven't seen word on Coinbase's Bitlicense approval, but they applied last year sometime and are expected (or perhaps already have received) their license.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitLicense
All of it.
At once.
(The UK system of account number/sort code does allow you to set up malicious direct debits against other people's accounts e.g. http://hoaxes.org/weblog/permalink/clarksons_account_gets_ha... - BUT the direct debit guarantee system is supposed to make them all reversible, and you can't DD to arbitary accounts, you have to be a verified merchant.)
No secrets involved.
> the info needed to transfer money to an account is the exact
> same info needed to silently transfer money from an account
If I wanted to transfer money from an account, would I need the username/password/credentials for that account?
Fun bonus, both of those numbers are printed clearly on every check you write, too.
But how does it really work? Is it done on a requester side - i.e. I can request money to my bank account having details of someone's else bank account wholly without their permissions? How could such lax security be allowed in modern age? When paranoid EU banks decline my transactions to my own accounts with other banks, confirmed by 2-factor auth, it's impossible to fathom how one can electronically take money from someone else's account.
In theory they should also be verifying your signature but I have never actually seen that happen.
I suspect if someone in another state cleaned out your account it might trigger some fraud alert, but nothing is really stopping it.
Or sign up for a PayPal account and fill in both of those numbers, and transfer money from your account to your PayPal balance.