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Comment by kolinko | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, in Poland it’s similar. Since ~2001 we’ve had wire transfers that take up to a few hours to arrive (or instant) and cost 0-0.25$ to send, regardless of the amount. It made PayPal or Venmo kind of pointless over here.

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People use PayPal, Venmo, Revolut, etc mostly for convenience. You just need a phone number or email to send a payment, compared to a bank/wire transfer where you first need to obtain the account number you’re sending to.

All of these services (including PayPal) charge no fees for personal payments. Just to merchants for commercial transactions, which often come with buyer protection, free credit/payment plans for the buyer, etc.

My bank app, ING, lets me send a payment request link as a text, via whatsapp, etc. Which is a nice way of not needing account numbers to send money.

But does it offer an API to do this? No. So it's useless for merchants who'd like to offer it as an alternative payment method.

I believe this would work, but I'm not an influencer: https://medium.com/@mariusandreiana/open-letter-to-banks-ple...

Yeah, the banking regulator and the banking industry alliance added that as a feature with the New Payments Platform in Australia. You register a ‘PayID’ with your bank (can be a phone number, email address, company number etc.) and then you just share that with people to do free real-time transfers (between basically any Australian banks).

PayPal is used because of customer protection.

Revolut is used because they hide their low forex exchange fees (despite their claims of nearly no fees, you'll find cheaper transfers elsewhere).

Venmo may be convenient in the States. I've never seen anyone in Europe using it. Banks have some system to send money to a phone number, though, which serves the same purpose.

One of the key features of these apps is that you only need the phone in order to make transfers, that allows you to avoid asking for the account number to anyone.

On the other hand, account numbers are not a significant 'secret' or something like that. They are just as 'safe' to share as phone numbers.

For anyone in the US, if I have your bank account number, I can steal your money. I strongly advise you not to share your account number with me or anyone else. I have to commit fraud in order to steal your money, making it a crime, but stealing's a crime in the first place, so that's not going to deter thieves.

My understanding is that this is no longer true: only a relatively small set of trusted entities can perform a direct debit (check or check substitute not present) from an account number without having to perform additional verification. The ones that I’ve personally seen are utilities and colleges; I tried to do the same with a friend once (so he could pay me back for something without having any fees) and our banks refused the transaction because our account names did not match.

Jeremy Clarkson fell victim to this. He published his bank details in his column to prove it was no big deal, and someone set up a £500 direct debit to charity.

Wow, I had no idea about Mr. Clarson's experience [1]. Is this also true in the USA?

[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7174760.stm

Replying to myself here since the edit time expired: this does of course depend on where you live; in the context of the thread and the while fintech popularity in various places around the world and the EU not really having much use for that, this is because you can safely transfer money around without the risk of someone abusing your 'secret bank number'.

In the US and probably other places as well this is more like an SSN where just having the number allows you to do all sorts of (criminal) abusive things.

Up to a point. They may be used to create direct debit subscriptions (you just need account details and name), which can be annoying.

Think about it this way: a check is just an account number on some fancy paper, with a few more numbers.

Technically speaking you can write a check on anything. One company paid their tax with one written on a 150lb halibut.

https://mobile.twitter.com/barclays/status/77386310895160115...

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