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Yes, sadly they're pretty common. My wife's side business is almost always paid with a check. I regularly, but not frequently, receive doctors bills or similar

Yes, sadly they're pretty common. My wife's side business is almost always paid with a check. I regularly, but not frequently, receive doctors bills or similar without online payment options, so I have to write ~12 checks/year. My housekeeper doesn't accept Paypal/Venmo, so she's paid with a check as well. Sane for some random laborers (lawn, paint) who are working by word of mouth (and not employed by a larger firm). And it's pretty common for elderly people to use them to pay for groceries. I guess my counter-question is what does the rest of the world do for doctors bills or paying laborers who don't accept payment via Paypal/Venmo?

messe 4y ago
> And it's pretty common for elderly people to use them to pay for groceries. Interesting. I'm not even sure a grocery store / supermarket would accept a cheque here. > My housekeeper doesn't accept Paypal/Venmo, so she's paid with a check as well Here it'd be either cash in hand, or a bank transfer (same as rent, really). All you need is their IBAN (International Bank Account Number) and BIC (Bank Identifier Code), and most mobile banking apps will let you set up a monthly direct debit. You can sometimes run into issues if their bank account is in a different country to the bank you're transferring from—it's unlawful to discriminate between IBANs in different countries, although it tends to goes unpunished—but there's usually workarounds to that.
- alistairSH 4y ago
  same as rent, really Also frequently paid by check. All you need is their IBAN (International Bank Account Number) and BIC (Bank Identifier Code), and most mobile banking apps will let you set up a monthly direct debit. What is this dark magic?!?! lol. The US is comically awful at consumer banking.
  - messe 4y ago
    And actually just to add to the last question of your comment. We'd also pay for doctors bills by either cash, card, or direct debit. Healthcare in Ireland isn't perfect (long waiting times—but you can go private for quicker care), but it's relatively cheap (free under a certain income, in the cases of certain long-term medical conditions, and above a certain age), and heavily subsidized. My sister recently had a stay in hospital, and then later an emergency room visit. As far as I'm aware, it all totaled less than €200 (half of which will be refunded by insurance, and another 20% of the remainder as a tax credit), which was all paid for partially by card (to the GP who referred us to the hospital), and partially by bank transfer (to the hospital).
warp 4y ago
Here in Ecuador it's mainly cash, but it's becoming more common to just do a normal bank transfer from a mobile phone. The banking app of my bank here (Pichincha) has a built-in option to share the payment as a .jpg via Whatsapp (or any messaging app) as a sort of confirmation to the recipient. In the Netherlands banking apps let you create "Payment Requests", which is basically a URL you can share with someone to have them pay you (you can pre-fill the amount they need to pay). Typically, if you open such an URL on your phone, it will let you jump into your banking app of _your_ bank to make the actual payment (even if the payment request is from a different bank than the on you're using).
MandieD 4y ago
You still get printed bills with the bank account number to send the money to in Germany; only big change in the past decade is that that bank account number is a long IBAN number with the bank’s ID and a checksum rolled in.

messe 4y ago

> And it's pretty common for elderly people to use them to pay for groceries. Interesting. I'm not even sure a grocery store / supermarket would accept a cheque here. > My housekeeper doesn't accept Paypal/Venmo, so she's paid with a check as well Here it'd be either cash in hand, or a bank transfer (same as rent, really). All you need is their IBAN (International Bank Account Number) and BIC (Bank Identifier Code), and most mobile banking apps will let you set up a monthly direct debit. You can sometimes run into issues if their bank account is in a different country to the bank you're transferring from—it's unlawful to discriminate between IBANs in different countries, although it tends to goes unpunished—but there's usually workarounds to that.

alistairSH 4y ago
same as rent, really Also frequently paid by check. All you need is their IBAN (International Bank Account Number) and BIC (Bank Identifier Code), and most mobile banking apps will let you set up a monthly direct debit. What is this dark magic?!?! lol. The US is comically awful at consumer banking.
- messe 4y ago
  And actually just to add to the last question of your comment. We'd also pay for doctors bills by either cash, card, or direct debit. Healthcare in Ireland isn't perfect (long waiting times—but you can go private for quicker care), but it's relatively cheap (free under a certain income, in the cases of certain long-term medical conditions, and above a certain age), and heavily subsidized. My sister recently had a stay in hospital, and then later an emergency room visit. As far as I'm aware, it all totaled less than €200 (half of which will be refunded by insurance, and another 20% of the remainder as a tax credit), which was all paid for partially by card (to the GP who referred us to the hospital), and partially by bank transfer (to the hospital).

warp 4y ago

Here in Ecuador it's mainly cash, but it's becoming more common to just do a normal bank transfer from a mobile phone. The banking app of my bank here (Pichincha) has a built-in option to share the payment as a .jpg via Whatsapp (or any messaging app) as a sort of confirmation to the recipient. In the Netherlands banking apps let you create "Payment Requests", which is basically a URL you can share with someone to have them pay you (you can pre-fill the amount they need to pay). Typically, if you open such an URL on your phone, it will let you jump into your banking app of _your_ bank to make the actual payment (even if the payment request is from a different bank than the on you're using).

MandieD 4y ago

You still get printed bills with the bank account number to send the money to in Germany; only big change in the past decade is that that bank account number is a long IBAN number with the bank’s ID and a checksum rolled in.