Huh? Debit transactions are not easy to reverse, at all, and in the U.S. at least are covered by much less generous consumer protection laws than are credit card transactions.

I was of course only talking about developed countries ;)

Really, afaik in europe and for sure in germany this is totally easy. It is not equally easy to reverse a transaction you started yourself. But when another person has you account-number and the public data belonging to this, all he can do is a "lastschrift" (direct debit), which is easily reverseable.

No need to downvote me. The USA is different than europe, and in this regards way behind.

A bank account number is different than a debit card number

About the direct debt, sure, I can undo this, via internet banking.

But a fraudulent debt card purchase takes time to process and you don't have you money in the account anymore.

With a credit card I can check for fraud and my money is not gone if this happens (and yes, it has happened to me)

Sure, those are different things. Maybe I misunderstood what the first comment was talking about, as I know of no system where you enter your debit card number to do anything.

This just highlights the fact that our global banking system works very differently in different parts of the world. And maybe, to close the cicle, as the article claims paypal really shouldn't forget this, as it has to behave differently outside of the US if it wants to stay successful. A different environment probably always needs a different strategy.