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I've lived in the US and UK and generally agree with you. But one thing that got me is that it seems fairly easy to defraud the system in the UK with everyone so freely giving out their bank account numbers.

What actually protects the bank account numbers in the UK/EU? Why do people seem totally unconcerned with giving out this information there?

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What bad can you do with someone's IBAN account number? Nothing, unless a bank is somehow totally incompetent.

It's basically the same as an email address. You can't read someone's email inbox just by knowing their address. Similarly, you can't send money out of a bank account just by knowing the number. (You could spam them with money, but most people wouldn't mind.)

> Similarly, you can't send money out of a bank account just by knowing the number.

You might if you walk into a branch with a little fake ID and a smile. Or you get a forced "vacation" in jail :)

But yeah, it's not naturally assumed that you can just do something with those numbers.

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