Anyone coming to the US from most of the world is painfully aware of how antiquated the whole system is. For a business accepting relatively few large payments,

Anyone coming to the US from most of the world is painfully aware of how antiquated the whole system is. For a business accepting relatively few large payments, a major issue is the cost of payment. For all their absurdity, paper checks are the only universally accepted almost-costless way to transfer money. ACH, wire transfer, card payments all come with an added cost of up to 3%, and every single proposed replacement system we've seen comes with new fees attached. For a payment of $10,000, payment by check costs perhaps $1. Payment by a 1% fee wire transfer system (most of them cost more) would be $100. Flat fee wire transfers range from $30 / transfer up. Given how big and archaic ACH is now, and how expensive replacing it would be, I can't see a way out of this unless banks are required by regulation to provide an aggressively low-cost transfer mechanism.