Thank you for providing a different point of view, I didn't realize things were so complicated in the united states. In the EU there is a system called iDEAL which iirc is maintained by a collaboration of different banks and lets you pay for stuff online instantly and with zero fee. For sending money person-to-person, there are apps like tikkie that are just a thin wrapper around iDEAL. And in cases where these things don't work, you can just do a direct bank transfer by typing in the other person's IBAN in your bank's app/website. Slightly less convenient, but still nearly instant and zero fee.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Never heard of iDEAL. Wikipedia says its a a Dutch system that was acquired by the "European payments initiative" last year. The EPI just became active as a payment system 1 month ago.

This is VERY much still in development and not at all an established system in the EU.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago

Not sure about the name of the systems, and I've seen them change names a lot over the years

But I think it's a pretty universal thing in the EU, that you're able to pay directly using an IBAN, I've even seen "direct bank tranfer" in stores that sell across the EU

[–] orl0pl 2 points 3 months ago

In Poland we have BLIK. It's simple, you go to your bank app and generate code, then you write that code and money is transferred. Also you can send money to phone number. That's very great system, with no fees.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 months ago

As a german I've never heard about iDEAL. The Wikipedia article says that it is mainly used in the netherlands

[–] Redredme 9 points 3 months ago

Ideal is not the same, by any means, as PayPal. Read up.

With ideal you loose your money. Ideal is made from the pov of the bank and the shop selling you stuff. Its almost impossible to claim your money back without the sellers consent.

Tikkie is not the same as PayPal since tikkie only works with EU banks. (and quite possibly at this moment only NL banks) PayPal does not need a bank account. Its also not really a wrapper around ideal but thats another discussion. And mostly a semantic one so lets not go there.

Effe wat meer moeite doen en de kleine lettertjes lezen medenedelander :)

[–] plunged_ewe 3 points 3 months ago

Actually, there's a better one for Europe. The Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2) is an EU directive to allow payments to be done through APIs exposed by the bank. It's essentially a wrapper for a bank transfer. Most new payments companies are just unifying these APIs.

Some counties do it better than others. The UK is very good (with the exception of starling bank). I remember Hungary being a pain.

[–] Lemzlez 2 points 3 months ago

iDEAL sounds a lot like Bancontact/Payconic in Belgium.

Which doesn’t do everything Paypal does either. Others have mentioned the buyer protection, but there’s also multiple payment methods you can link to it, subscription management, and one-click payments (where it also enters your address for shipping) - and crucially: available worldwide.

[–] ProjectPatatoe -4 points 3 months ago

Just another US "first world country" exceptions lol