Electronic funds transfer: How will it develop in Europe?

With the development of POS systems, electronic funds transfer, whereby the customer would have her account immediately debited at the point of sale, has become a very real possibility. There are plans in England for a payment system, although no European country has yet started a serious POS funds transfer system. It may be taken as a generalisation that development in POS systems will come earlier in the group of countries oriented towards cheques and credit cards than in those countries oriented towards giro transfers and cash payments. Simon Evans presented this paper at the Information Studies Conference on ‘Data communications for retail management’ in London in March.