It’s supposed to be this super duper important and secret number, but you have to bring a physical copy to work miles away from home for some stranger to copy. Many times you have to provide the number to even apply for a job and it ends up at who knows where because the application is on a third party private website. :agony-deep:
It's also ridiculous that in the US, your checking account number + routing number is a private key that, if someone else knows it, they can just start withdrawing funds! In other countries, you can share your bank account number with anyone because they can't use it to withdraw, only to send money or request.
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At least in my country, any time you want someone else to withdraw from your account (such as autopay), then you submit an invoice request to the bank with the company details. And between private individuals it's a request. I'm not sure how it worked before this was digitized, but now you can just use your bank app to approve.
I think US banking is like this due to the history of writing paper checks