Instant free bank transfers by IBAN.
In comparison with how tightly-guarded personal email addresses are protected (GDPR, etc.), it's shocking how common it is to freely give out your IBAN.
In comparison with how tightly-guarded personal email addresses are protected (GDPR, etc.), it's shocking how common it is to freely give out your IBAN.
Better than being able to commit ACH fraud merely by virtue of having the bank's routing and account number.
Side note: shout out to both MB Way and Multibanco payments in Portugal that have made it so I haven't have to give payment information to an online vendor in years.
I'm not sure about Europe, but at least in the UK, what makes such a system secure is that the account holder can reverse any "pull" transaction for over a month, with the merchant being on the hook. So it reduces the incentive to exploit it (or at least shifts the risk off the account holder), to a level where it's pretty much never done.
In the US, I'd be more worried about a one-time fraudulent ACH withdrawal than a recurring payment situation.
I don't see a similar risk here. It seems like there are more hoops to go through to make a pull transaction?
I presume the only security there is arises from the fact that those transactions can be reversed by the account holder within a generous grace period, and that this method of payment is only ever used to pay for long-standing services where there’s a strong paper trail to the beneficiary of said service (so not much point in doing the fraud to begin with).
IME, though, the whole authorization system I've had to use with SEPA and IBANs feels more secure, and I've had no misgivings about using it to transfer or receive money.
By comparison, using ACH to transfer funds between accounts is usually bidirectional in bank apps, so if you give me your account info so I can send you money, I can also use that same info to withdraw money.
That means I'd never send you my routing and account number even if the original purpose is for you to send me money.
As a consumer, though, the way things work in Europe (at least where I live) just make more sense to me than what I experienced in the US.
I've only had to deal with credit card fraud in the US and it was easy enough.
I did have a restaurant accidentally charge me $983 instead of $98.30 on a debit card for a meal during a holiday and, even though they immediately voided it, that still ended up basically blocking almost $1000 for several days. I can't imagine reversing an ACH transaction would be faster.
Overall I have no huge complaints about banking in the US. I just find it better in Europe so far, particularly sending money with IBANs.