[NickNameNick]

It astonishes me how apparently backwards retail banking is outside New Zealand. We've had free (or effectively free) inter bank transfers since internet banking became available. probably almost 20 years. I've used a cheque exactly twice in my entire life. I get paid by direct credit, pay my bills by direct credit. Transfers within the same bank instant for most banks, and inter-bank transfers usually clear hourly inside business hours.

I rarely use cash - I don't even carry any most of the time. EFTPOS is available in taxi's, its available in the tiniest corner store, ice cream trucks have it. I once visited a small restaurant in a 3 house township surrounded by a national park, I wasn't even sure they had phones, still had EFTPOS.

I went from mid Feb through last week without having any cash in my wallet.

I believe Australia is pretty close in terms of ubiquity of electronic banking services. But I've only visited, not lived there. I know the UK wasn't anywhere near as well set up when I was living there ~8 years ago. My recent visits to the US and Canada involved truly uncomfortable amounts of cash.

Now, NZ is a small country, with a single set of laws. I know that the scale of business in the US, and having to deal with fragmented state and federal laws and regulations make everything much harder, but I would have thought that someone would have managed to improve things eventually.