It seems quite obvious to me; the common currency isn't where this fell down. It fell down because a cheque written in the Netherlands would need to be cleared by that bank; you couldn't draw that cheque immediately in Germany because it would have to be referred back to the country of origin.
As Europe is not a one-nation Federal state, unlike the US, there isn't a central reserve bank that will clear cheques across national borders. It is very likely though that when all the nation states of Europe are using the Euro, national boundaries on money transfer will probably disappear. I must admit having never been charged to send a cheque in my life; I can't say I use them a lot but they've never cost anything. And where did this misspelling of the word "cheque" start? Surely "check" and "cheque" mean quite different things! Kev. ----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, March 15, 2002 12:27 PM Subject: Re: OT: eBay tale of woe > Wendy, > I sure don't fathom the European banking system. Here in the US, we > send you a check and in 2 or 3 days the amount is in your account. (There is > a Federal Reserve banking system which 'clears' the checks between banks.) > Everybody but the lowest income households have checking accounts. > Everybody uses their checking accounts to pay the electricity, water, gas, > phone, and other monthly bills. We just send off little bits of paper > (checks). > This works well because the checks cost us almost nothing...about $.25 > each in printing costs to have your name and address plus bank account in > magnetic ink on the check. And, people usually don't write checks they don't > have money for in the bank. > I wish somebody would explain how it works in the EU. My US bank might > charge something for depositing a Canadian check in Canadian dollars, but > never for depositing a US check. Why are they charging for depositing a > check in Euros? - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
