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Comment by frossie | Hacker News Reader

You guys know that in Europe this is common? It's called a "bank transfer" and it is trivial to do, just need people's bank account and routing number and yes, people do hand it out. Many (most? all?) bank websites support it.

We have newly-arrived Europeans working at our US office that cannot believe people still write cheques here.

[Edit since there has been some curiosity: here is who underwrites the scheme in the UK: http://www.bacs.co.uk/ - as you can see it's not-for-profit unlike PayPal. US companies that trade in the UK (like ebay.co.uk of course accept payments in this way . eg see http://reviews.ebay.co.uk/Payment-by-Direct-Bank-Transfer_W0...]

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I'm still frustrated by how far behind we (North Americans) are in terms of payments. What ever happened to using debit cards online? I find promise in email money transfers. But it's still a closed circle. Canadian banks only allow it among Canadian banks.

In Italy that, trust me, is not the best place to do business in the world, normal bank accounts with home banking can be used to transfer money among individuals just paying 50 cents for the transaction. The donwside is that it takes 3 days for the transfer to complete.

Here in Europe this is the most common way to exchange money. I perform at least 5/6 transfers every month as individual, and many more with my company.

In Canada, we can do bank transfers via email. There's a $1 flat fee. The banks take care of routing numbers, etc, behind the scenes.

What bank is this?

We have these things called "credit cards" where you are protected from fraud, typically get a certain percentage award through a marketing tie-in, and get to earn interest on the monthly float.

They have credit cards over there too you know :-)

Many people object to being in debt in principle. Yes, yes, I know you can pay off the balance every month, but clearly most people don't, otherwise credit cards would not be in business.

Also, for small-time ebay sellers and the like, the overhead in accepting credit cards is non-trivial.

You accept credit cards do you? The OP stated that this was a person-to-person transfer.

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