Checks have been around nearly as long as exorbitant overdraft charges.
“Checks are really a fundamental cultural signifier of relationship based commerce,” an official of the Independent Community Bankers of America declared in a New York Times interview. “It’s almost like handshakes.”
Judging by the current epidemic of high fives, fist bumps and man hugs, the future of handshakes isn’t all that certain, either. And the number of checks being written is dropping by 1.8 billion a year. At that rate, checks would go away entirely by 2026, according to Business Insider.
Among the benefits of banishing checks, experts say, is that it could reduce payment fraud. Checks account for less than nine percent of payments but 66 percent of payment fraud, according to the Association of Fraud Professionals.
I’m not sure how to feel about all that. Our landline is gone, there’s no longer an antenna on our roof and floppy discs disappeared from my life before I even knew what they were or why they were floppy. But I still have a checking/savings account and my latest bank statement showed the $0.11 in interest it generated last month to prove it.
Most of my major transactions — mortgage, car payments, insurance fees, bar bills — are handled by autopay. Cash is fine for tipping, say, car wash employees. And credit cards are accepted for just about any transaction that doesn’t run the risk of time in a federal penitentiary. But I do write an occasional check to people who provide services such as haircuts and minor home repairs, although I’m guessing they would prefer to get cash and hash that out later with the IRS.
Maybe check writing is just a habit. I’ve been writing them all my adult life and there’s a certain amount of satisfaction in writing a check, sending it off and knowing that you have fulfilled a financial obligation. (The downside of that, of course, is that writing checks forces you to immediately face how much you’re paying, while autopay and credit card charges are out of sight and out of mind until next month.)
But I probably could do without a checking account, I suppose.
As for the payment fraud crooks? Well, I guess they’d just have to spend more time hanging around ATMs looking for their victims.
Contact this columnist at dlstew_2000@yahoo.com.
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