Balancing my check account

Balancing my check account

"I remember seeing a check (yes, I've seen one person once using a check) in Finland when I was a really small boy."

In Germany many transactions are done using popular Ueberweisungen, either on paper or virtually at your bank's web site. They are simply bank transfers. They are free and you can transfer money to anyone having an account at AnyBank. Utilities sending bills also send a Ueberweisung, which is a bank transfer formular already filled with their information.

You buy something off e-bay ? You get the seller's name, account number and bank name and there you go. You log in at your bank's web site and fill out a virtual bank transfer formular. Direct from your bank to his/her bank, no middleman service like Paypal or whatever. And it's free.

And no giving out your credit card information.

Of interest (still no pun), the security aspect of using such virtual bank transfer. Here's how it works:

1) You go to your bank and you ask for a series of TAN (transaction) numbers.

2) You receive then personally a list, on paper, of 50 such numbers.

3) You access your account on the internet using your password.

4) When you make a bank transfer you use one of the numbers on your list. You scratch that number and use another one for the next transaction.

5) When you're about to run out of TAN numbers, you go back to the bank to get a new list.

6) If you loose your printed list (it happened to me once) then you have to tell a good story to the bank clerk. I'd say that if you loose it twice in a row it could be difficult to get a new one.

You cannot make a bank transfer from your account if you don't have a valid list of TAN numbers that were issued to you.

You can also give out your bank account number for companies to take money. Like when buying from Amazon.de for instance. Again, no credit card info needed, no interest fee (even small) to pay, no middleman service to pay.

So everything is paid by using these bank transfers in Germany. Rent, doctors, insurance, e-bay buyings, everything. Rest is by cash and ATM card.

Now, how come there's still no teletext feature on TVs in North America ? ;-))