Comment by graemep
6 hours ago
Yes, and it exists - its called "pay by bank".
its cheaper but customers lose protection for doing it, and as its illegal (yes, against the law) to offer them a discount for using debit cards, cash, or direct payments they have no reason to.
Yes I know pay by bank – I have used that to pay my plumber. In effect it replaces paying by cheque.
But the problem is that if you use it to pay for a service and do not get the service you can only claim off who you paid and that requires taking them to court while Credit Cards just require phoning up the card provider. Debit cards are between the two.
Exactly. If it is an outright fraud you do have some protection because of the push fraud rules, but not if its bad products etc.
I have not actually used it. I have paid some people (mechanic, gardener) with a bank transfer which works well thanks to faster payments being near instant.