Some of them are portable between banks, at least where I live (Italy). Anything I authorize to be paid for automatically (usually periodically) from my bank account can be ported to another bank (utilities, etc.). I give the authorization to the new bank and they do the work because it's in their best interest. I expect this to work in most of the EU and/or the SEPA area because the regulations and the tools are the same.
Handling periodical billings on my credit cards is probably a pain, I'd have to go through all those services and update them. It would be nice if VISA or MasterCard would do that for me. Luckily all those services send me mail when my credit card expires and I get the new one.
This is an excellent point and perhaps the right answer.
Most of these problems exist because the one place we trust to manage our resources never pivoted on these things. In fact most banks are barely crawling out of the dark ages.
Handling periodical billings on my credit cards is probably a pain, I'd have to go through all those services and update them. It would be nice if VISA or MasterCard would do that for me. Luckily all those services send me mail when my credit card expires and I get the new one.