[captainmuon]

SOFORTÜBERWEISUNG looked sketchy as hell the first time I tried it. Imagine IMMEDIATEWIRETRANSFER.COM (in capital letters) asking you to enter not only your bank account number, but also your password, and then a PIN from your secret list. The latter is something that the bank tells you to never, under no circumstances, give out, because you can use it to transfer money.

I find it really hard to believe that SOFORT does this without support or even consent of the banks. Scraping bank websites seems like something that could get you ruined or even jailed (I don't know, for dealing with bank customer's data in an improper way or something - at least I'd assume the banks could sue you for violation of their TOS). I only started using Sofortüberweisung at all when some trustworthy looking sites adopted it, and when it appeared to me as if it was a joint venture between SOFORT and the banks.

I guess if you want to build a successful business today, you can't ask nicely and wait for permission to do things (see also Uber et al).

[germanier]

The federal antitrust commission intervened after banks filed a lawsuit to stop Sofort from using their websites. The passages of their TOS that forbid using such services are most likely void as they obstruct a free market of payment providers (as seen by the federal antitrust commission).

Personally, I avoid that service but it has the blessing of government agencies from operating that way.

Some banks (e.g. DKB) now started to cooperate with Sofort instead and the German banks will start a similar service themselves this year.