People that complain about overdraft fees are morons. Don't overdraft. How hard is it to go to an ATM and check your balance?
If you get your salary at the end of the month like most people do then you'd only have a positive balance if your savings already exceed your monthly salary. If you don't have any savings then you'd be in the red for the amount of money you earn. (At the start of the month your balance would be zero so you'd be at minus-your-salary at month's end, being at zero or more would mean that you have already saved at least as much as you are paid).
That's why your overdrafting limit is usually twice your monthly salary.
I don't want to sound like a eurofag here but it always strikes me as odd how behind the times the US banking services are even compared to eastern europe. It's easier to transfer money to Wladivostok that to San Franscisco.
The first time somebody told me that there is actually a "we write and post your checks each month to pay your recurring fees" omline service in the US I thought he was kidding because I simply couldn't believe that something as inane as that would still be fairly standard in 2010.
The issuing of eurocheques stopped in 2002, because nobody was using them anyway for quite some time.
So "banking in europe, how does it fucking work"?
Payment at a brick and mortar store can either be done in cash, which is the most common payment option regardless of price in most of europe. By credit card which is the least common option because of the high processing fees (2% - 4% disagio usually) Visa and Mastercard are asking or by eurocheque/maestro card (usually called ec-card) ec-cards work like credit cards but the fees are lower, the card offers more security features and the service is run by the european banks so the payment is actually withdrawn directly from your checking account at the time of payment (the PIN terminals connect to the transaction servers of the banks, which are interconnected). A store owner can also check your credit directly.
So usually every store (and every vending machine) accepts cash, most accept ec-cards (even most vending machines do) and the majority don't accept credit cards at all (or only if the bill exceeds a certain amount). So most people won't even own a credit card.
Cash withdrawals can be made at any ATM machine. If your bank owns the ATM it has to be free of charge, if another bank owns it they may ask for a transaction fee but the maximum amount is specified. The big banks however have come to an agreement that their customers may also use the ATMs of the other banks free of charge. In Germany this covers more than 10.000 ATM machines.
EC-card fees are so low, that many ticket/vending machines no longer accept cash (handling of the cash is more expensive than retrofitting the device with a PIN-pad and paying the fees).
My bank for example offers me a checking account with online banking option and overdraft, Visa- and ec-card free of charge and I can witthdraw money from any ATM in the european union without paying any transaction fees but you won't get any interest on your money as compensation. This level of service is quite common, at least in Germany. There are also no fixed overdraft fees instead you have to pay interest on the amount you are in the red. Interest is quite high but may not exceed 20% per year. It's usually less than 10% for smaller amounts and less than 15% for larger ones.
Recurring payments are usually done by bank transfer. You can transfer money from any bank to any other bank in the EU if you know the account number and bank identifier code which is usually printed on any bill or statement by the company, you can also set up bank transfers as standing orders with your bank (basically you tell your bank to transfer the same amount of money to the same account each month until you tell them to stop) and if you agree you can even allow companies to directly withdraw the amount from your account each month.
Most recurring payments will be made using the last option.
All of these options are usually free of charge with no transaction fees and even if there are any you usually don't pay them yourself because convenience is worth more to those companies than the fees. If the transfers are international however the banks usually ask for a nominal fee (usually less than $5).
In my setup my salary gets automatically transferred to my checking account each month. Most recurring payments are made by the companies directly withdrawing the fees from my account (this is true for phone and internet services, cable TV, insurances and even most magazine subscriptions, my rent is transferred to the account of my landlord by means of a standing bank transfer order and I can manage everything from the comfort of my own home.
I usually only pay cash when it's a small amount because it's quicker than using the card and entering the PIN but I could get by without using a single cent of real currency if I wanted to.
The only fee my bank asks for is an overdraft fee everything else is free of charge as long the money is only transferred in the EU.
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though, especially since when he was eventually able to get the check done everything else went smoothly. I think most people in the UK just don't really understand credit rating though.
