Saigon
Gold Member
It's interesting at a time when European banks are starting to phase out some technologies that we have used for 20 years to think that the US has never had them.
Checks disappeared from much of the developed world in the 1990's, and have been entirely replaced by internet banking services.
Paypal was redundant 10 years ago, and I thought it was a joke when a US site asked me to use it the other day. Why can't I just pay through web-banking?
Almost all of my household bills are sent electronically direct to my web-bank, where they can be paid with a couple of clicks. I can buy everything from movie tickets to plane tickets through the internet direct from my bank account - no invoices, instant payment.
Likewise credit/debit cards here stopped useing magnetic strips around 2000, replacing them with harder to scim magnetic chips.
This year we will see contactless debit cards introduced, and Poland is already rolling out ATMs with biometric finger vein scanners.
So why is the US still stuck with old technologies?
Checks disappeared from much of the developed world in the 1990's, and have been entirely replaced by internet banking services.
Paypal was redundant 10 years ago, and I thought it was a joke when a US site asked me to use it the other day. Why can't I just pay through web-banking?
Almost all of my household bills are sent electronically direct to my web-bank, where they can be paid with a couple of clicks. I can buy everything from movie tickets to plane tickets through the internet direct from my bank account - no invoices, instant payment.
Likewise credit/debit cards here stopped useing magnetic strips around 2000, replacing them with harder to scim magnetic chips.
This year we will see contactless debit cards introduced, and Poland is already rolling out ATMs with biometric finger vein scanners.
So why is the US still stuck with old technologies?