Always strive to learn something useful. --Sophocles

I've seen a proposal where the process would be something like this: Person A who banks at B goes in to store Y who banks at Z. A initiates an order with his bank to pay X amount for invoice whatever to Y's account at Z. This is encrypted. B transfers to Z, Z notifies Y that payment has been received for X amount for invoice whatever. Transaction concluded. Y knows he's paid, but only his bank knows that a payment came from B, they don't know A's account info. The merchant doesn't know the customer's banking specifics, the customer doesn't know the merchant's banking specifics. High level peer-to-peer security can be used throughout.

It can be done, but the banking industry currently feel that it's cheaper to do refunds when demanded and re-issue cards rather than strengthen the entire system to make it more resilient to attack. Meanwhile, because one of my bank card's wore out long before it was scheduled to be replaced, I had to pay $9 to get a new one.