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You don't have to do that. Most banks have mobile deposit, and cheques are generally only used for larger sums of money.

vidarh 5y ago
Last time I used a check was about 15 years ago. And that was after moving to the UK in 2000 and having roughly the reaction above to even being given a checkbook. I'd never had a checking account before as that had stopped being a thing most people had back in the 1980s in Norway. When I got my first "adult" bank account in the 90s my bank didn't offer it even as an option to personal customers any more. Just to give you an idea how quaint it seems to many of us to hear about checks.
kolinko 5y ago
Why would you use a piece of paper for any sum of money? In Poland, I've seen a real-life check only once in my whole adult life (past ~20 years). Any amount, literally from $1 to $10M+ is being sent by a wire transfer, and wire transfers cost $0-$0.25 flat fee, arriving within the same working day, or instant. This is how it has worked for the past 20 years, and the more recent innovation is having a similar system working all across Europe, and instant transfers within the same country. Depending on a bank's security policy, the only difference between amounts is that some banks won't allow you to send wires above a certain amount from mobile, and with some banks you have to appear in person for wires above say $50k.
- terinjokes 5y ago
  > Why would you use a piece of paper for any sum of money? In the US, sending money to another person's account, especially as an individual, is a difficult process, often requiring giving long account and routing numbers that many of us were told not to give out. It also takes several days to process, and sometimes has fees of $25-30. Also some banks have limitations allowing you to do transfers only to accounts where the name matches. While many major banks have an online transfer system (eg, Zelle), this is far from being universally supported (my bank is not a member) and many people don't have it setup. Also the transfer limits might be low. Other options like Venmo or Cash require both sides of the transaction to have an account. They also don't work well outside of friend-to-friend interactions. My understanding is the US is due to replace the current clearing house system with one up to modern standards, but we'll see how that goes.
  - rowanajmarshall 5y ago
    > often requiring giving long account and routing numbers that many of us were told not to give out. It also takes several days to process, and sometimes has fees of $25-30 I get there probably isn't a single answer to this, BUT WHY? The US is a mature, skilled economy with a competitive B2C market, why does it still lag behind even comparable countries in terms of consumer financial infrastructure?
    - Aeolun 5y ago
      I imagine it is very profitable for the existing players.
    - jen20 5y ago
      > with a competitive B2C market This is the disconnect. There are only a couple of national banks, and they are all crappy in their own important ways. This was largely the same in the UK until Mon{z,d}o came along and banks had to treat user experience as a source of competitive advantage seemingly overnight.
      - wiltuk 5y ago
        The Faster Payments Service, which has allowed transfers between accounts of any UK bank which usually happen within minutes has existed since 2008. And it is free to use for non-business account holders throughout the entire market. Paym, which allows transfers using mobile numbers is available with most high-street banks, but notably, not the fintech banks has been available since 2014. So arguably the fintech banks are behind the curve here, likely to try and drive some sort of network effect to increase friction of transferring money to customers of other banks. Were the existing banks processes, apps & websites janky before the likes of Monzo came about? Sure, to varying extents. But the actual method of making transfers between accounts hasn't been influenced at all by the new banks, they're all using the existing structures that everybody was using before.
    - justsomehnguy 5y ago
      > BUT WHY? In US even the idea what there are could be some nation-wide (ie federal) registry of it's own citizen could get you pitch-forked. US still doesn't have a national-wide internal ID, and for the thing what essentially replaced it in function - driver's ID, every state has it's own format and idea what should be in it. It is not uncommon to hear what for something what requires ID (like buying alcohol or entering a nightclub) the people out of state would be barred from doing so because the clerk doesn't recognize the driver's ID of some other state and thinks it is a fraudulent one. Most European countries have it easy, compared to the US, having a single law across the country and one citizens registry, or at least something much closer to it than the US. Add to this a whole "embarrassed millionaire" mentality and a total unwillingness even to acknowledge the need for a change. For the last one see any thread on Reddit where sane^W any non-American asks why US shops can't write the final price on the tag already.
- listenallyall 5y ago
  > Why would you use a piece of paper for any sum of money? Because people like the assurance of a check, or a receipt, or a payment confirmation. How do you initiate a wire transfer? Seems like you would need to know a lot about the recipient -- their bank and account number, for starters -- to be successful. Sure you could do it on a mobile device but seems a lot more time consuming than writing a check. Privacy concern as well. What happens if the transfer fails or doesn't go through, for whatever reason? If you hand the recipient a check, they have physical proof that you intended to pay them, and they know the payer's bank and account number. What recourse, proof, or evidence does the recipient have for a failed wire transfer? How do B2B transactions work? Is it all wire transfer or do they pay each other with checks? In the USA, a huge percentage of consumer payments have migrated from checks to debit/credit cards (with near-instant confirmation), but companies still use tons of checks via standard postal mail all the time.
  - inglor_cz 5y ago
    Writing not from Poland, but from Czechia, which is similar. I have only seen checks arriving from the U.S., never used for payments within Europe as such. If you receive an invoice to pay, it will have the correct account number on it. Also, nowadays, many merchants include a QR code that makes payment with mobile banking app much easier. You just start the app, it activates the camera, reads the image and all you have to do is confirm the transaction. Very fast and with few possibilities to make a mistake. Landlords will give you their account number as well, it is usually written in the contract. If transfer fails, it is your problem. I am not sure how Americans handle bounced checks, but if someone gave me a check that I was unable to clear, I would suspect them of fraud. B2B is mostly wire transfers and sometimes credit cards. Bookkeepers prefer wire transfers, because matching them to invoices is usually trivial nowadays. Any good accounting program will do that for you. As for privacy, I would feel a lot more comfortable giving someone my account number (they cannot really do anything bad with it) than my postal address. And if your business is a VAT payer, its account number will be publicly listed by the tax authority anyway.
  - somewhereoutth 5y ago
    All these issues (and many many other issues both in and outside of banking) have been solved problems for so long outside of the US that the rest of us have forgotten about them.
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 5y ago
  One reason, not everyone can or wants to open a bank account. Illegal immigrants, for example. Or people receiving food stamps, disability benefits, they often work for cash, because they can't show money in their bank account. You can cash a check at any walmart.
- jimmont 5y ago
  Our (the US) government, primarily the law making arm Congress, has been dysfunctional for so long it erodes various functions of society. For examples look at how the US doesn't have Federal bank accounts for individuals, or expanded services from the US Postal Service, proper simple taxation, straightforward immigration, digital identity management without the need for elaborate expensive physical identity documents--there are a range of issues that speak for themselves. Both of the prevailing parties have effectively the same problem, the Republican one has simply become so excessively backward and activist that it's more distracting, sort of a shiny object. Just consider gun rights and how there's no effective sense of responsibility associated with that right. Or that there's no Federal ballot mailing program for all locales and States (for example Puerto Rican's cannot vote for even the POTUS) despite there being high security and USPS services providing a solution with excellent scalability.
rags2riches 5y ago
Cheques are an anachronism. I think I remember seeing my mother write a cheque some thirty years ago. I have never written or received one myself. I doubt I know anyone under fifty who has. Unless they've lived in the US, of course.
- nbernard 5y ago
  Depends a lot on the country. In France for instance, cheques are still very common, albeit less than before COVID.
- pjerem 5y ago
  Cheques are still pretty common in France, especially to transfer money from person to person for occasional transactions. I really rarely use them but they are honestly pretty useful as a fallback to pay someone you trust (family, friend). It takes seconds to write, your grandmother knows how it works, it doesn’t require smartphone/a computer/a complex banking application, It doesn’t require communicating your bazillion characters long banking information, everyone accepts it for little sums, it works offline, it doesn’t require holding large amount of value, it’s easy to cancel if needed. Yes it’s the least practical payment method and yes anything is better. But it always works where the rest doesn’t.
- ryandrake 5y ago
  I'm in the USA, and I will use a check only if it is the only realistic option, and those cases are surprisingly common. I've probably written about 100 paper checks in the last 5 years or so. Looking through my records, here are some examples of places I do business with that do not accept credit cards, or charge a fee to use a credit card: Mortgage company DMV County tax collector Roofing company Pest control company Child daycare Air conditioning company School PTA Landscaping company Kid's gymnastics lessons Pet rescue organization Dues for a hobby organization
- gsej 5y ago
  In the UK some people still use them. My elderly parents still occasionally send them to us. We don't take them to a bank or ATM though - bank apps will accept a photo of one and make the transfer instantly.
piva00 5y ago
Define large sums of money, I can go right now to my bank and transfer 100,000€ instantly, or I can do a SEPA Credit Transfer if I ever need to, up to 999,999,999€.
- frosted-flakes 5y ago
  So can I, or so could an American. But a cheque can be written on the spot, and as long as the recipient trusts the writer it's as good as cash. That's the real reason cheques are still around. No one writes a cheque to pay for groceries or a $2 item at a convenience store anymore, the way my mother used to do 35 years ago. For established relationships its often the simplest method, and it doesn't require an Internet connection or technology beyond a pen. A large-ish cheque is $500-$50 000. Larger amounts would generally go through wire transfers. Personally, I have never written a cheque, and have only had to purchase a money order once for an rental apartment damage deposit. But I have received plenty of cheques, either from work I've done for small businesses, or as regular paycheques before I set up direct payments with my employer. I used to think like some here, that cheques are obsolete and anyone who uses them is dumb. But I was wrong; they serve a purpose, and there is no harm in them sticking around.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

vidarh 5y ago

Last time I used a check was about 15 years ago. And that was after moving to the UK in 2000 and having roughly the reaction above to even being given a checkbook. I'd never had a checking account before as that had stopped being a thing most people had back in the 1980s in Norway. When I got my first "adult" bank account in the 90s my bank didn't offer it even as an option to personal customers any more. Just to give you an idea how quaint it seems to many of us to hear about checks.

kolinko 5y ago

Why would you use a piece of paper for any sum of money? In Poland, I've seen a real-life check only once in my whole adult life (past ~20 years). Any amount, literally from $1 to $10M+ is being sent by a wire transfer, and wire transfers cost $0-$0.25 flat fee, arriving within the same working day, or instant. This is how it has worked for the past 20 years, and the more recent innovation is having a similar system working all across Europe, and instant transfers within the same country. Depending on a bank's security policy, the only difference between amounts is that some banks won't allow you to send wires above a certain amount from mobile, and with some banks you have to appear in person for wires above say $50k.

terinjokes 5y ago
> Why would you use a piece of paper for any sum of money? In the US, sending money to another person's account, especially as an individual, is a difficult process, often requiring giving long account and routing numbers that many of us were told not to give out. It also takes several days to process, and sometimes has fees of $25-30. Also some banks have limitations allowing you to do transfers only to accounts where the name matches. While many major banks have an online transfer system (eg, Zelle), this is far from being universally supported (my bank is not a member) and many people don't have it setup. Also the transfer limits might be low. Other options like Venmo or Cash require both sides of the transaction to have an account. They also don't work well outside of friend-to-friend interactions. My understanding is the US is due to replace the current clearing house system with one up to modern standards, but we'll see how that goes.
- rowanajmarshall 5y ago
  > often requiring giving long account and routing numbers that many of us were told not to give out. It also takes several days to process, and sometimes has fees of $25-30 I get there probably isn't a single answer to this, BUT WHY? The US is a mature, skilled economy with a competitive B2C market, why does it still lag behind even comparable countries in terms of consumer financial infrastructure?
  - Aeolun 5y ago
    I imagine it is very profitable for the existing players.
  - jen20 5y ago
    > with a competitive B2C market This is the disconnect. There are only a couple of national banks, and they are all crappy in their own important ways. This was largely the same in the UK until Mon{z,d}o came along and banks had to treat user experience as a source of competitive advantage seemingly overnight.
    - wiltuk 5y ago
      The Faster Payments Service, which has allowed transfers between accounts of any UK bank which usually happen within minutes has existed since 2008. And it is free to use for non-business account holders throughout the entire market. Paym, which allows transfers using mobile numbers is available with most high-street banks, but notably, not the fintech banks has been available since 2014. So arguably the fintech banks are behind the curve here, likely to try and drive some sort of network effect to increase friction of transferring money to customers of other banks. Were the existing banks processes, apps & websites janky before the likes of Monzo came about? Sure, to varying extents. But the actual method of making transfers between accounts hasn't been influenced at all by the new banks, they're all using the existing structures that everybody was using before.
  - justsomehnguy 5y ago
    > BUT WHY? In US even the idea what there are could be some nation-wide (ie federal) registry of it's own citizen could get you pitch-forked. US still doesn't have a national-wide internal ID, and for the thing what essentially replaced it in function - driver's ID, every state has it's own format and idea what should be in it. It is not uncommon to hear what for something what requires ID (like buying alcohol or entering a nightclub) the people out of state would be barred from doing so because the clerk doesn't recognize the driver's ID of some other state and thinks it is a fraudulent one. Most European countries have it easy, compared to the US, having a single law across the country and one citizens registry, or at least something much closer to it than the US. Add to this a whole "embarrassed millionaire" mentality and a total unwillingness even to acknowledge the need for a change. For the last one see any thread on Reddit where sane^W any non-American asks why US shops can't write the final price on the tag already.
listenallyall 5y ago
> Why would you use a piece of paper for any sum of money? Because people like the assurance of a check, or a receipt, or a payment confirmation. How do you initiate a wire transfer? Seems like you would need to know a lot about the recipient -- their bank and account number, for starters -- to be successful. Sure you could do it on a mobile device but seems a lot more time consuming than writing a check. Privacy concern as well. What happens if the transfer fails or doesn't go through, for whatever reason? If you hand the recipient a check, they have physical proof that you intended to pay them, and they know the payer's bank and account number. What recourse, proof, or evidence does the recipient have for a failed wire transfer? How do B2B transactions work? Is it all wire transfer or do they pay each other with checks? In the USA, a huge percentage of consumer payments have migrated from checks to debit/credit cards (with near-instant confirmation), but companies still use tons of checks via standard postal mail all the time.
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  Writing not from Poland, but from Czechia, which is similar. I have only seen checks arriving from the U.S., never used for payments within Europe as such. If you receive an invoice to pay, it will have the correct account number on it. Also, nowadays, many merchants include a QR code that makes payment with mobile banking app much easier. You just start the app, it activates the camera, reads the image and all you have to do is confirm the transaction. Very fast and with few possibilities to make a mistake. Landlords will give you their account number as well, it is usually written in the contract. If transfer fails, it is your problem. I am not sure how Americans handle bounced checks, but if someone gave me a check that I was unable to clear, I would suspect them of fraud. B2B is mostly wire transfers and sometimes credit cards. Bookkeepers prefer wire transfers, because matching them to invoices is usually trivial nowadays. Any good accounting program will do that for you. As for privacy, I would feel a lot more comfortable giving someone my account number (they cannot really do anything bad with it) than my postal address. And if your business is a VAT payer, its account number will be publicly listed by the tax authority anyway.
- somewhereoutth 5y ago
  All these issues (and many many other issues both in and outside of banking) have been solved problems for so long outside of the US that the rest of us have forgotten about them.
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 5y ago
One reason, not everyone can or wants to open a bank account. Illegal immigrants, for example. Or people receiving food stamps, disability benefits, they often work for cash, because they can't show money in their bank account. You can cash a check at any walmart.
jimmont 5y ago
Our (the US) government, primarily the law making arm Congress, has been dysfunctional for so long it erodes various functions of society. For examples look at how the US doesn't have Federal bank accounts for individuals, or expanded services from the US Postal Service, proper simple taxation, straightforward immigration, digital identity management without the need for elaborate expensive physical identity documents--there are a range of issues that speak for themselves. Both of the prevailing parties have effectively the same problem, the Republican one has simply become so excessively backward and activist that it's more distracting, sort of a shiny object. Just consider gun rights and how there's no effective sense of responsibility associated with that right. Or that there's no Federal ballot mailing program for all locales and States (for example Puerto Rican's cannot vote for even the POTUS) despite there being high security and USPS services providing a solution with excellent scalability.

rags2riches 5y ago

Cheques are an anachronism. I think I remember seeing my mother write a cheque some thirty years ago. I have never written or received one myself. I doubt I know anyone under fifty who has. Unless they've lived in the US, of course.

nbernard 5y ago
Depends a lot on the country. In France for instance, cheques are still very common, albeit less than before COVID.
pjerem 5y ago
Cheques are still pretty common in France, especially to transfer money from person to person for occasional transactions. I really rarely use them but they are honestly pretty useful as a fallback to pay someone you trust (family, friend). It takes seconds to write, your grandmother knows how it works, it doesn’t require smartphone/a computer/a complex banking application, It doesn’t require communicating your bazillion characters long banking information, everyone accepts it for little sums, it works offline, it doesn’t require holding large amount of value, it’s easy to cancel if needed. Yes it’s the least practical payment method and yes anything is better. But it always works where the rest doesn’t.
ryandrake 5y ago
I'm in the USA, and I will use a check only if it is the only realistic option, and those cases are surprisingly common. I've probably written about 100 paper checks in the last 5 years or so. Looking through my records, here are some examples of places I do business with that do not accept credit cards, or charge a fee to use a credit card: Mortgage company DMV County tax collector Roofing company Pest control company Child daycare Air conditioning company School PTA Landscaping company Kid's gymnastics lessons Pet rescue organization Dues for a hobby organization
gsej 5y ago
In the UK some people still use them. My elderly parents still occasionally send them to us. We don't take them to a bank or ATM though - bank apps will accept a photo of one and make the transfer instantly.

piva00 5y ago

Define large sums of money, I can go right now to my bank and transfer 100,000€ instantly, or I can do a SEPA Credit Transfer if I ever need to, up to 999,999,999€.

frosted-flakes 5y ago
So can I, or so could an American. But a cheque can be written on the spot, and as long as the recipient trusts the writer it's as good as cash. That's the real reason cheques are still around. No one writes a cheque to pay for groceries or a $2 item at a convenience store anymore, the way my mother used to do 35 years ago. For established relationships its often the simplest method, and it doesn't require an Internet connection or technology beyond a pen. A large-ish cheque is $500-$50 000. Larger amounts would generally go through wire transfers. Personally, I have never written a cheque, and have only had to purchase a money order once for an rental apartment damage deposit. But I have received plenty of cheques, either from work I've done for small businesses, or as regular paycheques before I set up direct payments with my employer. I used to think like some here, that cheques are obsolete and anyone who uses them is dumb. But I was wrong; they serve a purpose, and there is no harm in them sticking around.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]