The equivalent of the standing order in the internet age for the UK specifically
A standing order is still the right way to do this. Most bank accounts have online access and will let your customer setup the standing order online, without having to fill in a paper form.
I searched for FTSE 100 fund on Yahoo Finance and found POW FTSE RAF UK 100 (PSRU.L), among many others.  Google Finance is another possible source that immediately comes to mind. moneydashboard.com  claims to be the UK's Mint but I have problem using it with my HSBC account right now. I have contacted their helpdesk. "I've just received my first Credit Card statement from HSBC. All I can say is all the information you need is there. It's really easy to pay off your credit card bill just have to read the instructions! Here are the bank account numbers and steps how to set up a standing order (as it was written in my statement): ""Standing Order/ bill payment Pay a fixed amount to your HSBC Bank Credit Card using the following information: Type of Card Card     ------------------------  Number Begins   ----Account Number MasterCard: HSBC Bank and Welsh --- 543460 ----------------29004734 Visa: HSBC and Welsh ---------------------454638 ----------------09003649 Gold Visa ---------------------------------------494120 ----------------69005161 Remember, if payments are made using the wrong card details, sort code or account number, they may be delayed or not applied."" hope it was helpful" This answer will be US-centric but hopefully most of the information will be applicable to other jurisdictions: Generally speaking: &gt; But the more pressing question is: What obligations should be imposed on the Web Trust giants as they embed themselves ever further into our lives? How do we assure ourselves that the “users” they connect us to are human or that the search results they feed us are based on merit — not pay for play (or worse, algorithmic racism). &gt;  &gt;  &gt;  &gt; It’s time to consider whether to break up the Google search and advertising functions, or to deny safe harbors that protect the tech platforms if they turn a blind eye to sex trafficking or commercial piracy. We need a new privacy Bill of Rights to demystify the algorithms that track and tag you and shape your on-line experience. &gt;  &gt;  &gt;  &gt; In these partisan times, it speaks to how dangerous The Web Trust has become that both Republicans and Democrats are calling for action and reform. If Congress and the administration want to preserve a truly open internet, they need to become the trustbusters for a new, digital generation.  I guess those parts are not important for you? This article to me was more along the lines of; it's this, or it is that; the authors formatting for this op-ed was a bit wack, creating uncertainty in his assessment.  I'm not worried if you didn't see that though! I was recently at the National Physical Laboratory in the UK and discussing exactly this.  By January 2018 financial institutes will be legally required to time stamp all transactions (including high frequency trades) with a UTC time code.  Today this is almost exclusively done using GPS satellite time and as the OP states - these can be spoofed but also are vulnerable to certain weather conditions.  One of the many innovations of NPL in their recent diversification includes sending ‘time’ into the city by  optical fibre which is ‘gold standard and cannot be tampered with’.  Very interesting topic ( I thought )! "[This is the simple solution.](http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?singlepost=3041628)  ""Since the Securities and Exchange Act requires that all orders must be intended to execute there's a simple way to prevent this sort of nanosecond game, where any part of the strategy involves ""flashing"" an order that isn't really intended to execute and thus clear through the exchange: Force all orders to be valid for two full seconds or until executed.""" I know nice and free stock screener for UK (and 20+ exchanges) - https://unicornbay.com/screener?f=exchange_str|%3D|LSE;&s=MarketCapitalization|desc&p=1|20 from Unicorn Bay. It supports both fundamental and technical analysis. This probably would not stand up in court, but seeing as businesses do not have the same collection protection rights as consumers, it could be a very costly mess to disentangle yourself from.  Operations like this are like whack-a-mole, they're ridiculously easy for someone to set up and very hard to take down. I guess my point of view is that if domain seizing becomes a very prominent thing than proxies become a prominent thing amongst piraters - not that they already aren't, but I'm of the belief that whatever technology legislators embrace for combating piracy, pirates embrace an equally effective converse technology.   As usual there will be a lot of unsuspecting American citizens hurt by SOPA but eventually the people who have made torrents successful for the average Internet user will be able to make proxies, hidden downloads, and mirrors extremely user-friendly and easy-to-use for the public. As far as I'm concerned combatting piracy through legislation rather than business practices is opening pandora's box.   Right now it's possible to make your ISP see nothing but bandwidth, it's difficult to set-up, and a pain to maintain, but if content providers want to wage war, they should be prepared to lose, and lose hard. Whether or not you'll be allowed to enter the UK is a topic for a different forum (and really more a topic for a lawyer rather than strangers on the internet). That being said, as a non-lawyer giving my opinion of the situation, you should be granted access to the UK as the banks/money lenders/phone companies don't have a relationship with Border Entry. With regards to debts in the UK, there is some precedent to debts being waived after a certain period of time, but the minimum is 6 years for unsecured debt, and the companies you owe money to can still chase you for payment, but can't use legal proceedings to force you to pay. However, the big caveat to this is that this only applies to residents of England and Wales.  From the cleardebt.co.uk site: What is out of date debt? Debts like these are covered by the Limitation Act 1980, which is a   statute of limitations that provides time scales as to how long a   creditor can chase you (the debtor) for an unpaid debt. The Limitation   Act 1980 only applies when no acknowledgement of a debt has been made   between you and the creditor for six years for unsecured debts or 12   years for mortgage shortfalls and secured loans. This law only applies   to residents of England and Wales. When does debt go out of date? If the creditor fails to maintain contact with you for six years or   more, you may be able to claim that the outstanding debt is statute   barred under the Limitation Act 1980. This means the creditor cannot   use the legal system to enforce payment of the outstanding debt. The   time limit starts from when you last acknowledged owing the debt or   made a payment to the account. When can a creditor pursue an unsecured debt?  You may think a creditor has written off your debt if you haven’t heard from them for   a long time. The reality is that the debt still exists. The creditor   can still contact you and they are entitled to chase the outstanding   debt, even if the debt has been statute barred, but they are unable to   use legal proceedings to force you to pay. Creditors can pursue an   unsecured debt if: I suppose all our (british) newspapers have 'social media teams' which may or may not include spammers, it will become a more common thing.  Bear in mind also that the Daily Mail  (website at least) seems really popular in the US. They are also taking posts from sites like reddit and putting them into their dead tree paper.  I think the issue the admins banned these domains about was that the sites (or agents acting on behalf of) were spamming *and* manipulating the voting system - method unknown. I've used yahoo to perform the exercise you're asking about. It allows you to download price data, month end if you wish, and by manipulating via a spreadsheet to add a column for purchases, you can easily see how your £100/mo would end after so long a time period. "Are there any known protections against obvious typos in the stock systems themselves? Do you know of stock exchanges which flags or rejects obviously wrong buy or sell orders (e.g., selling something for 0.1% of its highest buy order, or buying something at 1000 times the current sell order)? Does the stock exchange ""community"" have some sort of ""rules of conduct"" for this? Yes and No. Most Stock Exchanges for certain set of stocks have circuit breakers that are more to restrict panic selling or artificial drop in prices. The kind of controls you are mentioning can't be put on individual trades; as stock exchanges are meant to guarantee / provide neutral ground for the price to be determined by demand / supply. There are quite a few companies that have quickly lost value and become worthless with a day or two. Hence it becomes difficult to determine if something is error by an individual or not. Once an order is submitted to the exchange, it can't afford the to and fro to verify ... as even few seconds make a different in volatile markets. The kind of errors reported are difficult for an individual to make as he would not own the kind of stocks and the stock broker will stop the trade from being placed." In your proposed world, each business would have it's own laws when people stepped on their property. That sounds like a recipe for disaster. How would everyone keep track of the millions of different laws? What's to stop a business from taking advantage of this and duping customers who haven't researched their unfair laws?  And how would two parties in a dispute agree on which private court system to use?