Technology now can lower the costs of the payment mechanism and make it more efficient and convenient by reducing paperwork. The national payment mechanism moves money between accounts in a fast, paperless way. Consumers can do their banking without the assistance of a teller, as john Jones did to get cash, or to make deposits, pay bills, or transfer funds from one account to another electronically. Some EFT cards can be used when shopping to allow the transfer of funds from the consumer's account to the merchant's. To pay for a purchase, the consumer presents an EFT card instead of a check or cash.
Money is taken out of the consumer's account and put into the merchant's account electronically.
For example, consumers can authorize direct electronic deposit of wages, Social Security or dividend payments to their accounts. Or, they can authorize financial institutions to make regular, ongoing payments of insurance, mortgage, utility or other bills. A check is a piece of paper with information that authorizes a bank to withdraw a certain amount of money from one person's account and pay that amount to another person. Most consumer questions center on the fact that EFT systems transmit the information without the paper. Here are the answers the EFT Act gives to consumer questions about these systems.