Instant bank transfer
| Sofort GmbH
|
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|---|---|
 |
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| legal form | Company with limited liability |
| founding | 2005 |
| Seat |
Munich Germany
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| management | Robert Bueninck Patrick Dittmer Jacob von Ingelheim |
| Number of employees | 194 (December 31, 2017) |
| sales | 58.66 million euros (2017) |
| Branch | Financial services |
| Website | www.sofort.com |
| As of December 31, 2017 | |
Sofortüberweisung is an online payment system from Sofort GmbH for cashless payments on the Internet. The procedure is a pseudo prepayment system , as the merchant does not receive the payment immediately but receives a payment confirmation. As a result, most retailers act as they would with prepayment and release goods or downloads immediately. The company has been part of the Swedish Klarna Group since 2014 .
The core of every transaction is questionable for the customer's data protection: the buyer transmits the online PIN of his bank account, which he normally protects strictly against access by unauthorized persons, as well as a TAN that is only valid for exactly one transaction to Sofort GmbH . After checking the account balance, the latter carries out the transfer to the dealer and immediately gives him a transaction confirmation. In addition to the account balance, further data is retrieved from the payment service provider to check the account balance, including the current account balance, sales, the credit line of the overdraft facility, the existence of other accounts and their balances. This query takes place automatically without the user being informed about it.
Operating company
The immediate GmbH (formerly PayNet AG , Payment Network AG and instant AG ) is a registered with the district court Munich company. The former stock corporation was founded by Christoph Klein and Markus Neun as an offshoot of the Eurosoft computer trading company in February 2006 in Gauting near Munich. In addition to the main location in Munich, the company also has other locations in Cologne and Linden as well as sales offices in Belgium, Poland and Spain.
The company offers, among other things, online payment systems . These include the direct transfer system Sofortüberweisung, Sofort Ident (a procedure for age verification), Sofort Paycode (form of Sofortüberweisung for invoices with a clickable link or short code to be entered on the Sofort GmbH website) and Sofort XXL (international extension of the Sofortüberweisung).
In 2014, what was then Sofort AG was taken over by the Swedish payment service provider Klarna and converted into a GmbH in 2015 .
Procedure
In the case of a transfer in the case of classic online banking on the Internet (see Fig. Classic online banking ), there is a direct connection between the payer (i.e. the account holder or an authorized person) and his or her account-holding institution, e.g. B. via a secure website of the bank. Here, the payer transmits both the legitimation data (e.g. his PIN and a valid TAN) and the transfer data ( payee , amount, purpose) himself.
In addition to the classic procedure described above, there are other payment systems (e.g. Giropay , iDEAL ) in which the transfer data is not transmitted to the bank by the payer himself, but in which these data are transmitted in another way, e.g. B. initiated by an online shop, transmitted to the account-holding institute. For example, the bank then presents the payer with a pre-filled transfer form on a website. The legitimation takes place (unchanged from the classic case) between the payer and the account-keeping institution (see Fig. Example ).
In the case of immediate transfer , the legitimation no longer takes place directly between the payer and the bank holding the account. Sofort GmbH appears as the payer to the account-holding institute after it has received the legitimation data from it (see Fig. Functional principle ). In contrast to the provider Giropay, Sofortüberweisung is open to customers regardless of which bank they have their current account with. This is due to the fact that the customer logs into his online banking via the Sofort GmbH system and therefore there is no need for an agreement between the bank and Sofort GmbH.
For each transfer, Sofort GmbH charges the seller a fee of 0.9% plus 0.25 euros for material goods or 2.0% plus 0.25 euros for virtual goods, which is well below the standard 2.49% plus 0.35 Euros from PayPal is in Germany. However, PayPal offers buyer protection (reimbursement for non-delivery) and currency conversion.
criticism
In contrast to online transfers, in which the transfer is carried out using the websites of the payer's bank, the payer has to provide sensitive data to a technical service provider with immediate transfer .
With the access data to the account, the operator has access to the transaction overview visible via the online banking interface, the account balance, issued standing orders, deposits, etc. In 2011, Frank-Christian Pauli from the Federation of German Consumer Organizations said: “The customer must know what he is giving his consent to and that is possibly not the case here ”.
Some banks have banned the use of the PIN in their general terms and conditions outside of the procedures considered secure by the banks. The use of the instant transfer can then be a breach of duty of care and possibly have negative consequences. The Bundeskartellamt checked this ban on the disclosure of the PIN and declared it invalid in 2016. The complaint lodged with the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court was rejected, but the banking associations considered going on appeal, so that the decision was not yet legally binding, at least on the day the judgment was pronounced, January 30, 2019.
But there are also banks where the use of instant transfer is explicitly permitted.
Some online retailers offer Sofortüberweisung as the only free payment method. According to the BGH, this violates Section 312a (4) BGB. A reference to Sofortüberweisung as the only free means of payment is unreasonable, at least as long as the transfer of PIN and TAN is generally prohibited by the general terms and conditions of the banks. The legality of the terms and conditions or the reasonableness of disclosing private bank data were not relevant in the decision, and the BGH did not take any further position.
On January 13, 2018, new, Europe-wide uniform rules for payment transactions came into force. Payment initiation services such as Sofortüberweisung are now legally recognized and subject to banking supervision . Online bank customers are now allowed to pass on PIN and TAN data to these services. Banks and savings banks must adapt their terms and conditions accordingly.
The operator advertises Sofortüberweisung u. a. with the following statements and claims on the subject of safety:
- The online banking access data (such as PIN) and the TAN are only entered in the secured payment form from Sofort GmbH and not from the retailer.
- Sensitive data such as PIN and TAN are not saved and cannot be viewed at any time from the outside, by the dealer or by employees of Sofort GmbH.
- Sofort GmbH has the TÜV seal of tested data protection and the payment system has the certificate of tested payment system from TÜV Saarland.
Nevertheless, customers must be aware that even a correctly behaving operator can become a victim of a hacker attack , in the course of which data can be stolen or transactions can be manipulated. According to Sofort GmbH, there has not yet been a single case of fraud in more than 100 million transactions (as of 2015).
The points of criticism listed include:
- There is insurance, but it is not directly between the insurance company and the payer. In the event of a claim, the insurance company of Sofort GmbH will compensate for any damage incurred.
- The procedure leads to a lowering of the inhibition threshold of Internet users to pass on PIN and TAN on the Internet. This increases the risk of phishing on the Internet.
In 2010, Stiftung Warentest stated in an article: "Before doing any transactions on the Internet, always make it clear that fraudsters can plunder your account with your PIN and TAN."
In the 2014 payment method comparison by Stiftung Warentest, the point of criticism of the violation of banking terms and conditions is no longer discussed. In a comment by Stiftung Warentest it says:
"We are not unaware that in the past it has been seen that users violate the terms and conditions of their bank when they use Sofortüberweisung. There was even a legal dispute about this. But before a verdict was reached, the Federal Cartel Office intervened. It takes the view that banking terms and conditions that prohibit the use of Sofortüberweisung are contrary to antitrust law. As a result, the banks undertook not to publicly claim that users who use Sofortüberweisung are violating the banking terms and conditions. For this reason we have not discussed this in the current article. "
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Annual financial statements for the 2017 financial year of SOFORT GmbH. In: Bundesanzeiger , June 4, 2018.
- ↑ Exact sequence of the transfer process , accessed on December 22, 2013.
- ↑ Real-time confirmation of the transaction , accessed on August 28, 2014.
- ↑ a b Rebekka Strumpfrock: End for "Sofortüberweisung", PayPal and Co? In: Internetworld , July 16, 2015, accessed on February 18, 2018.
- ↑ Klarna takes over SOFORT AG . computerwelt.at, March 9, 2014, accessed on November 16, 2014.
- ↑ H. Peitsmeier: Article. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , June 8, 2012, p. 19.
- ↑ Overview of fees for SOFORT Überweisung for sellers ( Memento from December 18, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ One click - and the data on sueddeutsche.de is gone
- ↑ a b BGH, judgment of July 18, 2017 - KZR 39/16. (on p. 4 no. 6 mentioning the legal relevance of the Federal Cartel Office decision). July 18, 2017, accessed December 4, 2017 .
- ↑ Elisabeth Atzler: Passing on PIN: Model clauses for online banking were wrong for years. In: Handelsblatt / https://www.handelsblatt.com . Handelsblatt GmbH - a company of the Handelsblatt Media Group GmbH & Co. KG, January 31, 2019, accessed on April 5, 2019 : "[...] Since the beginning of last year, regulations from the EU Payment Directive PSD2 have been in effect in Germany Legally regulate access to online banking by third parties. Nevertheless, the banking associations are considering appealing the matter. Once the written grounds for the judgment are available, it will have to be examined whether a decision should be brought about by the Federal Court of Justice, the three banking associations announced on request. It is about fundamental issues - including with a view to security in online banking. [...] "
- ↑ Uniform rules for Europe: That will change in 2018 in payment transactions . Federal government. December 8, 2017. Archived from the original on October 4, 2018. Retrieved on October 4, 2018.
- ↑ Finances and insurance: more consumer protection in payment transactions and simplification of follow-up financing . Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection. Archived from the original on October 4, 2018. Retrieved October 4, 2018.
- ↑ Federal Ministry of Finance press release No. 6 of 2017 - International / Financial Market: Federal Government strengthens competition and security in payment transactions . Federal Ministry of Finance. Archived from the original on October 4, 2018. Retrieved October 4, 2018.
- ↑ Korbinian Eisenberger: But now! In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , June 21, 2016, accessed on May 4, 2017.
- ↑ Sofortueberweisung.de is controversial . In: Finanztest , 03/2010, accessed on February 4, 2013.
- ↑ Payment on the Internet: Four methods in comparison . Stiftung Warentest, accessed on December 2, 2014.