In this thread and in others, I have heard the claim that many European countries do not use cheques very often. They consider it backward and difficult.
So you ask, what do they use? Electronic funds, debit cards, etc of course! Its so much easier and better.
This makes all fine and dandy sense until I stopped to think, how do I and everyone I know use cheques? With the exception of little old ladies at the grocery store that take forever, Cheques are primary used for person to person transfers of non-trivial amounts of money or other transactions not with established businesses.
How do I pay the dog walker on a monthly basis? With a cheque.
How does Timmy get his birthday money from Grandma 3 states away? Inside a birthday card with a cheque. (You can’t send cash through the mail).
How does the lady down the street who makes craft items and jewelry get paid for items? With a cheque. (she obviously doesn’t have credit card or debit card transaction capabilities)
How do people tithe at church that put in more than $20? Witha cheque.
I am not sure I see an easy way to use e-money in these circumstances and most people aren’t of the habit of shelling out more than $100 in cash for everyday transactions.
How do these other places do these things? Is it all larger amounts of cash?
Electronic transfers. As an example: a friend of mine, who lives in Newcastle, had to pay me $30 the other day. In times gone by he’d have posted a cheque to me, or waited until we next met and then paid me the cash. Instead, he just transferred the money straight from his account into mine.
How does that work? My guess is that you told him your bank and account number by phone, and then he either went into the bank and gave them that information, or he did it by internet. Am I close?
In Europe I can just give my account number to someone and they can pay me. They can’t take money out with only an account number for that they’d need: My client ID, my RSA key generator device and my mobile phone, plus two different passwords.
Cheques are used in Europe; just much less than they used to be. EFT and card transactions have probably taken over 90% of the transactions that used to be made by cheque. Birthday money, etc, is regularly sent by EFT (or banknotes inside a birthday card sent by post). If you’re contributing to your church an amount more than is convenient to put in a collection plate in cash form, you’ll set up a regular transfer from your account to the church’s. The dogwalker is paid by EFT. The lady who makes jewellry as a cottage industry probably is set up to handle debit cards and credit cards, at least if she has got to the level of running an occasiona market stall.
There isn’t an EU-level cheque clearing system, so cheques have never been terribly convenient for making payments between european countries, rather than within them. This may have provided an impetus to the development of electronic payment systems.
Well, I’ve signed up for many different e-pay programs with organizations that get money out of my bank account on a monthly basis. To do this I went to the organization’s website and put in those two numbers. They take a undetermined amount of money out of my account every month and I did absolutely nothing on the bank side to authorize any of it.
that’s the way we do it here. Also we use cash and if a cheque is needed we can get a postal order or bank cheque. I still have a cheque book but much prefer bpay and direct funds transfer, I don’t even have to use my computer I can use my i-Phone.
Anything under a couple of hundred bucks is often just paid in cash.
FWIW, I live in Canada and probably haven’t used a cheque in the last 10 years, aside from post dated cheques to my landlord in an apartment I rented in the early 2000s. Everything from a business is debit card/credit card, personal is e-money transfer. I hate cheques. (Also, is ‘check’ an accepted spelling of ‘cheque’? Is this one of those British/US English things?)
To set up a direct debit in Europe (so my internet bill can be taken each month) I need to give my bank account number (and bank ID) to the ISP.
Then I need to log into my bank. This requires that I have a small digital RSA code device that my bank gave me. With this device and two passwords I can log into my account.
To do anything like transfer funds or set up direct debit, the bank will send a code via SMS to my mobile phone - I can’t change the registered phone number without going into the bank with my passport.
When setting up the direct debit, I enter the account number of the entity that will be taking funds (my ISP), and define an allowed frequency and maximum amount.
It is all quite secure compared to anything I’ve seen in the USA.
Checks are almost nonexistent in Thailand. This is largely a cash society. Even if you’re buying a car, it’s not unusual to go pull the cash out of the bank for it. Even when we sold our old condo, the buyer paid us in cash. Electronic transfers are new and being used more frequently, as are debit cards, but these are all new developments, and cash is king. From what I can tell, it’s this way in neighboring countries, too.
Many if not most salaries are deposited directly into bank accounts.
Checks are not absolutely unheard of, though. I was given a check once for 100,000 baht on a local account about 15 years ago, worth US$4000 at that time. I may have received a check on one other occasion, I seem to remember vaguely.
In Cameroon they had personal checks, which my local village bank made me get. People didn’t use them to pay bills and if someone tried to cash a personal check no doubt the banker would walk down the street and knock on the check writer’s door to make sure they really meant it. But the bank insisted that I get some in case I should fall ill, and need somebody to pull out money for medicine while I’m laid up or in the hospital.
The information I need to pay someone to their bank account is less than what’s needed to charge the account. What’s needed varies.
Some examples:
In order to pay someone from one of my bank accounts, I need a 20-digit account number (if from abroad, the ISBN, which is a group of letters followed by the 20 digits).
My banks will pay bills that have been issued following their usual procedures (PIN entered for authorization or signature on ticket); they will accept e-charges from utility companies (which don’t require written contracts any more) but only if they are from the location where they know I am (they do know I travel a lot, I try to keep them appraised but there have also been times they’ve emailed me to make sure a bill was legit; once a recurrent charge has been accepted as legit they don’t contact me again); in theory the name should match mine but in Spain it’s long-standing custom for flatmates and renters to have a bill be in one person’s name while a different one pays, so the banks don’t really enforce that rule (parts of Spain have a legal system under which custom is as important as written law and can even trump it; I’m from one of those areas).
In order to get money from my nephew’s bank account - sorry, can’t; heck, I had to get into an argument with the bank so they would let me open it as his birth present! (As I’d pointed out it’s customary for godparents to open the kid’s first account, they changed the procedures to allow for this, so three years later my brother was able to open the Kidlette’s account without any problems; he is not authorized to use it, though, only the Kidlette’s father). It’s a child’s account, so there are limitations not only on how to do things but on what can be done. The only people who can take money from my nephew’s bank account are him and his Dad (his Mom, not being an authorized signatory, would need a Death Certificate or a Full Invalidity Certificate for the Dad); the account can not be used to pay bills. The data I need to put money into it? Same as for any other account, its 20-digit number (or if I’m paying from abroad, the ISBN).
And don’t forget PayPal for transferring funds. It’s quick and cheaper than using a direct bank transfer when sending money abroad. Only yesterday I used this service to pay the week’s rent on an apartment for our holiday in Spain next month.