Originally Posted by
Alex71
We have a similar system here in DE as well. It's called "Direktüberweisung". When buying something online through a shop that supports this, one can choose one's bank and initiate an online transfer in a seperate popup window using the online PIn and a TAN. The shop is than immediately notified when the transfer went through and can ship the item right away.
That's exactly how the IDEAL system works. I think it's a great system.
Most people here use a Pin card, which is a debit card, for real-life transactions, however, there still are a few occasions (a market, for example) when you need to have cash. Unfortunately, our Pin network (Maestro) does not seem very popular in Germany.