The giant hole in usefulness of banks that I see is that doing bank to bank transfers of money aren't easy on a customer.  For example, I have my checking account at one bank, and my car loan at another.  In order to pay my car loan, I drive to bank #1, withdraw cash, drive to bank #2, and deposit.<p>EFT is mostly inaccessible to customers.  Checks work, and would avoid the bank #1 in my process, but take extra time to clear.  Wire transfers work, but would charge me a decent sized fee every time.<p>Basically, it shouldn't be so difficult to transfer money between banks at the customer's level.  But I also understand that interbank coordination is done at a higher level than any one bank.  So ING for example can't just say "here's a new interface" and let people go for it.<p>I suppose my question is: how do we advance the banking system in areas that require system-wide simultaneous upgrades?