Payment is by bank transfer only.

ENGADGET: iPhoneSIMfree begins fulfilling bulk orders, apparently will not unlock end users' phones

In most wealthy countries, even cash-obsessed Germany, such transactions are done by bank-to-bank transfer, direct debit or, at a minimum, by cheque.

ECONOMIST: Direct debit

An Israeli citizen was allegedly involved in "identifying, recruiting and transporting victims" and "ensuring the delivery of cash payments by electronic bank transfer" prior to surgery.

BBC: Kosovo organ trafficking case surgeon bailed in Turkey

This is partly the fault of a primitive banking system: there are no cheques, few credit cards, and paying by bank-transfer means an hour or so in a smelly queue.

ECONOMIST: Russian love in a cold climate

Except that if Bankia has really been strengthened by this financial engineering, then there would have to be a very significant transfer of risk to the European Central Bank - and therefore, by implication, to its shareholders, or the other central banks and taxpayers of the eurozone.

BBC: No magic potion for eurozone banks

Many of the recent customer withdrawals were fueled by a grassroots effort called Bank Transfer Day, in which organizers urged big-bank customers to switch financial institutions on Nov. 5.

WSJ: Customers to Banks: It's You, Not Me

As we know, that's not the whole story, because there are lots of one-off factors acting to pull down the final figure for 2012-13, including the Royal Mail pension fund transfer and the debt interest now being transferred to the Treasury by the Bank of England.

BBC: More red ink for Chancellor George Osborne

But even banks that claim to comply with it now, such as Britain's NatWest and Germany's Deutsche Bank, say they cannot guarantee a transfer time of less than six days for most payments by wire.

ECONOMIST: Banking: Loose wiring | The

It will roll out a service this fall, so any Indian with a mobile phone and a Visa card can transfer funds domestically to any other Visa cardholder for a 2% fee (to be split by the card-issuing bank, mobile phone vendor and Visa).

FORBES: Magazine Article