Quote:
Originally Posted by lendaddy
Stijn,
I read an article a while back about how advanced Europe was in this regard. Even on the "public" level in paying utility bills. Even though we can do this in the U.S. the payments are not in real-time like they are in Europe.
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i guess the banks got you by the balls in the US
over here a lot is regulated by the gouvernement as to what banks can or cant' do, even what they have to do in terms of service, they can't charge what they want for their service, eg , they can't charge per transaction for private persons
just recently they had to make all EU transactions free for private persons
if done via proper EU bank codes (IBAN&BIC BIC is bank code, IBAN is a combined number of bankaccount number and then something of the local bank)eg, not just by the number in the recipients country
i believe next year they are harmonising all cashmachines and shop systems so any regular bank card, works in any EU country, any shop ( at the moment there are several systems to which some banks are member off one of which is called MAESTRO. but not all shop payment terminals take it,
note, this is completely aside from VISA, MC , AMEX, which technically does not go via the local banks, but via the CC companies
another step is they are restructuring , all bank number formats across the EU, so soon you'll be able to wire money to any old EU country, simply by the bank account number , at which time IBAN&BIC will become obsolete
i think this is one case where "government" has show that it can make big differences, but i think the US system of lobbyists, and interest groups have to much of a hold of politics to let any form of govermenent butt in with it's way of doing things... no? and those in power, senate, congress, whitehouse, those really couldn't care less about it, while i think they should, because it allows for a more dynamic economy, and i think y'all could use some of that at the moment ( and even if not now, i think any time is a good time for good solutions that improve economy )