[davchana]

In US that means routing number and account number. Having these two enables anybody to push or pull any amount of money (or at least try to pull, based on availability). Its crazy, companies promise that they will not pull more than asked, but sometimes coding error causes big problems, the one I remember etsy pulling thousands instead of 10s, because of a decimal point error, so pulling like 1486 instead of 14.86.

[bthrn]

This information is on the bottom of every paper check. While it is probably not advisable to broadcast and post up everywhere, it is not supposed to be a secret.

[jazzyjackson]

Right, its security by deterrence. Besides its not like you can anonymously drain someones bank account, someone claims fraud on your 10,000$ charge you're getting a phone call from your bank.

[davchana]

True, yes, it will be sorted out if it is unauthorized, but if it is like in 1000 or around, most of the major banks will simply overdraft of active, and leave the customer to notice, find & call bank to sort it out. In real case of etsy, where etsy was pushing/paying money to sellers through direct deposit (& employers too), they mistakenly emptied accounts, and most of the accounts went into over draft, I believe a couple years ago.

Most of the employers', companies' direct deposit forms/agreements say they can pull money back they paid by mistake.

In contrast in India, now banks ask cheque holders to login into net banking and submit the cheque info if they write a cheque over certain big amount. One leaf of cheque allows only one withdrawal, when presented in original, and if signature matches exactly, and if account has sufficient money; whereas in US, routinely companies convert paper cheque to electronic payments.