A NOTE ON THE GIRO TRANSFER SYSTEM

Abstract

PAYMENT BY CHECK, THE usual means of transferring funds in the Anglo-Saxon world, plays a much smaller role in the countries of Continental western Europe. These countries (as well as some nonEuropean ones) have developed a form of payment known as the transfer, which has virtually no counterpart in Anglo-Saxon banking operations. American and British banking literature contains only a few scattered discussions of this particular topic, and these generally relate only to individual countries or to individual giro institutions.1 The present note is an attempt partially to fill this gap.