Why must identification be provided when purchasing a money order?
The Bank Secrecy Act of 1970 requires that banks assist the U.S. Gov't in identifying and preventing money laundering. This means they're required to keep records of cash transactions of Negotiable Instruments, and report any such transactions with a daily aggregate limit of a value greater than (or equal to?) $10,000. Because of this, the business which is issuing the money order is also required to record this transaction to report it to the bank, who then holds the records in case FinCEN wants to review the transactions. EDITED: Added clarification on the $10,000 rule
"The best I could come up with would be to simply ask for the amount of ""notes"" and ""coins"" you would like, and specify denominations thereof.  The different currency labels exist for the reason that not all of them are valued the same, so USD 100 is not the same as EUR 100. To generalize would mean some form of uniformity in the values, that just isn't there." PayPal is free for buyers, taking their profit from the sellers -- in much the same way that credit cards take a percentage from the seller (though they will also charge you interest if you don't pay off the entire balance every month). As far as I know, there's nothing that keeps a vendor from having a different price for PayPal customers than cash customers... but that would show up in the number displayed by PayPal before you authorize the purchase, so if you're paying attention it shouldn't be possible to sneak it by you. PayPal has several modes of operation. I'm not aware of one where they hold your balance. Normally you either give them your credit card info, or you give them information about (one of your) bank account(s) and authorize them to do electronic funds transfer from and to that account on your behalf. I've always stuck with the credit card approach; I trust PayPal but I don't trust them that far, on principle. If I was going to link them to an account, it would be a small account I'd create for that purpose, NOT my main savings/checking accounts! (Hm. Actually, I do have one account which normally floats around $500 -- it's the one I dump accumulated pocket change into -- and I could use that. If I ever feel a need to do so.) PayPal does reduce the risk of credit card numbers being abused, by reducing how many people you've given the number to. Depending on what kinds of purchases you make, that may be a security advantage. It certainly doesn't hurt. Personally I have no problem with giving my card number directly to a serious business, but on eBay or sites of that sort where I'm dealing with individuals who are complete strangers I do like the isolation that PayPal provides. In other words, eBay is exactly the environment where I DO use PayPal. After all, that's exactly what PayPal was created for. Debit card purchases without PIN are treated as credit card purchases by merchants, and that includes ID verification. In addition to the ways you mentioned, you can get a debit card in any grocery store and load it with cash, and these debit cards don't have a name imprinted on them. But then if you lose them - you may have troubles proving you did in fact lose them when you try to recover your money, as anyone can use them. Technically you can register them online and call in and request refunds for fraud losses just as any other debit/credit card in the US (with $50 deductible), but in practice it may be difficult. These cards have very high fees, and may not be accepted for rentals etc. See what your current card requires for additional cards.  When my daughter turned 16, and I ordered a card for her, I realized the issuer didn't ask for her social security number, only a name and address.  That's when I also ordered a card with my pseudonym. Which I believe is what you're looking for.  I realize that you prefer no name at all, but any online site where you place an order will require you to fill in that name field . In any country, individuals (and shops) can reject any form of payment that is not Legal Tender - defined by law as a payment form that must be accepted. Shops are typically more generous, because they want to do business with you, but individuals are in a different position. In France, only official coins and bills are declared as Legal Tender (so if they don't want to, individuals don't even need to accept bank transfers). This is for doubts you need to pay. In addition, as you are not forced to do business with them, people and shops can require whatever they feel like to require - if you want to buy their car, they can ask you to stand on your head and spit coins, and if you don't like it, they don't sell to you. (They won't do much business then, probably) "For me, it would be hard to leave all forms of money at home (cash, credit card, debit card.)  There are times when you simply need to have money on hand.  But, here's a simple idea I have that lets you bring your cards with you, yet still puts up a hurdle to curb impulse buying. When you're in a situation where you want to buy something, the card that's in your wallet/purse will be wrapped in your crafted ""reminder envelope.""  You'll see the reminder, which is hopefully enough.  Then, in order to make a purchase you'll need to tear it open.  That should get you to think twice. The one problem with the above is online purchases: If you have memorized your card information, add this rule for yourself:  No online purchases without the payment card present and visible.  (i.e. you also must tear open the envelope for online purchases.)" Nowadays, the field is irrelevant for processing the transfer and completely ignored by the banks. Pretty much the only purpose it has is for documenting whom you intended to send the transfer to. If you mistakenly send a transfer to the wrong person (which is becoming extremely unlikely with the IBAN due to the builtin check digits) then they are mandated by law to give it back to you. If they refuse to do so and you end up going to court, the content of that field could be important to prove them wrong if they claim they are the rightful recipient. **Know your customer**  Know your customer (KYC) is the process of a business identifying and verifying the identity of its clients. The term is also used to refer to the bank and anti-money laundering regulations which governs these activities. Know your customer processes are also employed by companies of all sizes for the purpose of ensuring their proposed agents, consultants, or distributors are anti-bribery compliant. Banks, insurers and export creditors are increasingly demanding that customers provide detailed anti-corruption due diligence information.  ***  ^[ [^PM](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=kittens_from_space) ^| [^Exclude ^me](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiTextBot&amp;message=Excludeme&amp;subject=Excludeme) ^| [^Exclude ^from ^subreddit](https://np.reddit.com/r/business/about/banned) ^| [^FAQ ^/ ^Information](https://np.reddit.com/r/WikiTextBot/wiki/index) ^| [^Source](https://github.com/kittenswolf/WikiTextBot)   ^] ^Downvote ^to ^remove ^| ^v0.27 The IBAN uniquely identifies a Bank and Account number Globally. Technically only IBAN should be sufficient.   However in real world, today the way application have got developed [over a last 30 years without IBAN being in place], require Beneficiary Bank Code [identifiers], because based on that they determine how the payment needs to be processed.   Although IBAN has been adopted by more countries in Europe [plus Australia, New Zealand and more], there applications have not yet undergone the required change to fully support the real purpose or essence of IBAN. It would still be quite some time for IBAN to be truly functional. There generally isn't much in the way of real identity verification, at least in the US and online.  The protection you get is that with most credit cards you can report your card stolen (within some amount of time) and the fraudulent charges dropped. The merchant is the one that usually ends up paying for it if it gets charged back so it's usually in the merchant's best interest to do verification.  However the cost of doing so (inconvenience to the customer, or if it's an impulse buy, giving them more time to change their mind, etc) is often greater than the occasional fraudulent charge so they usually don't do too much about it unless they're in a business where it's a frequent problem. It depends on the seller.  If the seller wants, they can collect the information from you and send it to the payment gateway.  In that case, they of course have everything that you provide at some point.  They are not supposed to keep the security code, and there are rules about keeping the credit card number safe.   The first four digits of the credit card number often indicate the bank, although smaller banks may share.  But for example a Capital One card would indicate the bank.   Other sellers work through a payment gateway that collects the information.  Even there, the seller may collect most of the information first and send it to the gateway.  In particular, the seller may collect name, email, phone, and address information.  And in general the gateway will reveal that kind of information.  They will not give the seller credit card info other than the name on the card, expiration date, and possible last four digits.  They may report if the address matches the card's billing address (mismatched addresses may mean fraud).   Buying through someone like PayPal can provide the least information.  For a digital good, PayPal can only expose the buyer's name (which may be a business name) and email (associated with the payment account).  However PayPal still has the other information and may expose it under legal action (e.g. if the credit card transaction is reversed or the good sold is illegal).  And even PayPal will expose the shipping address for physical goods that require shipping. It is likely the policy of the credit card company.  If you are running a business, you should factor in theft as part of your mark-up/margin.  Every major business accounts for theft within their business practices and accounting.  That way they are covered for instances like yours.    If you have not been accounting for theft, then I'd highly recommend it.  This might be an expensive learning lesson for your family business.  Either implement new procedures such as checking ID with credit cards to match the names, or factor in theft/loss of product into your margins.  Ideally, do both. They could if they wanted. It's of course illegal to do if you didn't authorize it, and to process credit cards, they need to have a relationship with a credit card processing company, which is not so easy to fake - not any Joe could do that using a fake ID. Note that you are protected through your credit card company; if you tell them it's an unauthorized charge, they'll return it to you without discussion. It is then the vendor's duty to prove that it was authorized, and if he cannot, he'll pay extra fees to the processing company. Overall, the risk is very small; it shouldn't be your worry. "Your money in the bank is yours. If you lose your bank card and forget the account number, it's still yours. It's just harder to prove. If your name is Joe Smith, it might be harder to find your bank account and to prove it's yours.  If ""go to the bank"" means walking into a branch of the bank and walking out with your money fifteen minutes later, that's unlikely to happen. More likely they will give you forms to fill in to maximise chances of finding your account, and tell you what evidence to bring to prove that you are the owner of the account." The laws of the United States of America require that the federal currency issued is accepted as legal tender for all goods and services anywhere within this country.  One really has to wonder what the motivation behind this story is. VISA obviously knows that such a move is illegal. I am skeptical that there's any truth to the article at all.