ACH debit blocks/filters on consumer account
The technical feature exists to (1)block all ACH activity, (2)block all ACH credits, or (3)block all ACH debits attempting to post to the deposit account.  The large financial institutions will not deviate from their company policies and won't offer something like this for a personal account.  The smaller institutions and credit unions are much more willing to discuss options.  Especially if you maintain a large deposit balance or have many products with the institution, you might convince them this feature is very important and insist they block all ACH activity on your account. This feature is used frequently on controlled asset accounts where the balance must be frozen for a variety of reasons.
Are you allowed to have two personal current accounts with a debit card attached to each one? Yes, you may have as many current accounts you want, but you should ask why should I have more than one. It is cumbersome and time consuming to keep track of ongoing incoming credits and outgoing debits. Open to bank fraud too, if you aren't careful. If yes, can a sole trader in the UK use the second personal account for business transactions? Yes, but no payments to the business. At the end of the year you file you P11D, even if you have a business bank account. You would need to justify the expenses by keeping the bills and stuff. As it will be a personal account, you have to little more careful, not to mix personal and business expenses.  If you are allowed to use a second personal account for business transactions, then why would someone choose to open a business bank account, where you have to pay? What are the benefits? First of all no company will pay into you personal account, for any transactions, they need to pay you. They will only pay to an account registered with the business, with whom they are dealing with. Benefits are you have your business expenses sorted out in one account and personal expenses in other. Pure business expenses comes out of the business account, rather than from your personal purse, keeps the accounts smooth. No need to sort out expenses at the end of each quarter or at the end of each month. You don't have to create a PayPal account in order to buy from a merchant that uses PayPal for processing their payments.  You can use your credit card just like with any other purchase. Creating a PayPal business account is, as you say, mainly for businesses wanting to accept payments, not make them.  PayPal doesn't require you, the customer, to have an account just to make a payment to a merchant.  We have dozens of customers a day make purchases through us using our PayPal account (we're small), and for them the main attraction to using PayPal to pay us is that PayPal has pretty good security and offers some very good customer protections against fraud.  They don't have to create a PayPal account just to pay us, though. When you create a PayPal business account, you link a bank account to it that they verify, then they issue you a PayPal MasterCard, which is a debit card that links to your PayPal account.  When you make purchases, if the funds are in your PayPal account (because, for instance, you're using PayPal as your merchant processor) then the payment is deducted from that.  If there's no money in your PayPal account then PayPal simply debits the bank account you linked with them, no differently than if you were to use your bank's debit card. In this instance, if you don't plan to use PayPal for merchant processing then there's no real reason to open a business account.  It doesn't have any advantages over your bank's debit card and, IMHO, just adds another layer of complexity and paperwork to your accounting for no identifiable benefit. I hope this helps. Good luck! This is a reasonable requirement which many banks probably have. The reason is that after you deposit a check, ACH or direct deposit - they may be reversed after a couple of days (check bounced, payment canceled, etc). If you wire the money out, and then the check by which you got the money gets bounced - the bank is left hanging because money wired out is very hard to return. Wire transfers are generally irreversible unless its a mistake in the wire.  After 10 days, these transactions cannot be reversed and the money is bound to remain on the account, so you can wire it out. By the way, it also goes for cashier's checks as well, I had a similar discussion with my banker (don't remember if it was WF or Chase) when I needed one based on a ACH transfer from my savings account elsewhere. They gave me the check, but said that its because I proved that the transfer was from my own account. In addition to @mhoran_psprep answer, and inspired by @wayne's comment.  If the bank won't let you block automatic transfers between accounts, drop the bank like a hot potato They've utterly failed basic account security principles, and shouldn't be trusted with anyone's money. It's not the bank's money, and you're the only one that can authorize any kind of transfer out.  I limit possible losses through debit and credit cards very simply. I keep only a small amount on each (~$500), and manually transfer more on an as needed basis. Because there is no automatic transfers to these cards, I can't lose everything in the checking account, even temporarily. "Well, it took some effort to get an explanation from my bank. Turns out that some supermarkets use direct debit as a method of transferring money for purchases payed by so-called ""EC"" cards here. I was told that for some reason, a supermarket decided to reverse one of such transactions." Having worked at a financial institution, this is a somewhat simple, two-part solution. 1) The lendor/vendor/financial institution simply turns off the overdraft protection in all its forms. If no funds are available at a pin-presented transaction, the payment is simply declined. No fee, no overdraft, no mess. 2) This sticking point for a recurring transaction, is that merchants such as Netflix, Gold's Gym etc, CHOOSE to allow payments like this, BECAUSE they are assured they are going to get paid by the financial institution. It prevents them from having issues. Only a gift card will not cost you more money than you put in, BUT I know of several institutions, that too many non-payment periods can cause them to cease doing business with you in the future. TL:DR/IMO If you don't want to pay more than you have, gift cards are the way to go. You can re-charge them whenever you choose, and should you run into a problem, simply buy a new card and start over. http://www.mint.com attaches to all your accounts and lists all your transactions.  I love it. "As i see it, with a debit card, they   are taken kinda out of the game. They   are not lending money, it seems really   bad for them. Not exactly. It is true that they're not lending money, but they charge a hefty commission from the retailers for each swipe which is pure profit with almost no risk. One of the proposals considered (or maybe approved already, don't know) in Congress is to cap that hefty commission, which will really make the debit cards merely a service for the checking account holder, rather than a profit maker for the bank. On the other hand, it's   definitely good for individuals. I disagree with that. Debit cards are easier to use than checks, but they provide much less protection than credit cards. Here's what I had to say on this a while ago, and seems like the community agrees. But, why do we really need a credit   history to buy some of the more   expensive stuff Because the system is broken. It rewards people in debt by giving them more opportunities to get into even more debts, while people who owe nothing to noone cannot get a credit when they do need one. With the current system the potential creditor can only asses the risk of someone who has debt already, they have no way of assessing risks of someone with no debts. To me, all this credit card system   seems like an awfully nice way to make   loads of money, backed by governments   as well. Well, credit cards have nothing to do with it. It's the credit scores system that is broken. If we replace the ""card"" with ""score"" in your question - then yes, you're thinking correctly. That of course is true for the US, in other countries I have no knowledge on how the creditors assess the risks."