[EdwardDiego]

How common are cheques/checks still in the USA?

All our banks (NZ) stopped issuing cheque books and accepting cheques over 2020 - 2021. There were some rather elderly people who were inconvenienced, but the banks were pretty good at helping them adjust.

And it has been a very long time since anyone really accepted payment in cheque form - just due to the crime associated - back in the days when new chequebooks were mailed out to customers, criminals would routinely check mailboxes for letters that felt like a chequebook.

[tempestn]

Still reasonably common, as it's (amazingly) usually cheaper than sending an electronic transfer. At least, that's my experience doing business banking in the US. (I'm Canadian, so don't have a lot of experience with personal banking there.)

[fabbari]

About the being cheaper: checks are usually free. For Wells Fargo - a large U.S. bank - when you schedule payments online they will print a check and send it for free. If you want to transfer money via wire you are actually charged.

Coming from the EU I was shocked to find out that a lot of the B2B payments for small and mid size companies - are done sending checks in the mail.

Routing and account numbers are considered sensitive information, and normally hidden on online banking. My understanding is that these can be used to transfer money out of the bank account.