Here in The Netherlands, instant electronic payments with your debit card (pinnen) has been widely available since 1990. People sometimes used cheques before that, but even then it was rare. Most large payments happened by "Acceptgiro". It's a form that the sender would mail to the bank to authorize a payment to another bank account. Not sure if there's a proper English name for it.
Please note that "pin" transactions are not settled instantly. It's just that when you pay via pin, the vendor of the machine (most likely CCV or similar) guarantees the shop they get the money.
The actual money transfers (the €5 you paid at some shop from your account to the pin terminal vendor, and the hourly or daily total for that shop from the vendor to the shop's internal account) take place hours after the fact.
So for all parties involved it seems instant, but technology wise it's still more or less batched, but seems instant based on trust.
Of course in The Netherlands, we have SEPA Instant Payments now (based on but not entirely the same as the European IP scheme). These are actually instant; when you pay, account balances of you and the creditor (at the other bank) are updated within 5 seconds.
You are right. I meant "instant" as in, I can pay and the merchant has immediate feedback that the transaction is approved. As opposed to things like bank transfers which take one or more business days to be confirmed.
