[listenallyall]

> 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]

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]

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.

[listenallyall]

They've generally been "solved" as well inside of the US also, via debit cards, online/mobile banking, and ACH. I'd guess that most people handle fewer than 10 checks per year, outside of rent/mortgage. But there are occasions when checks come in handy and are preferable. I'm glad they remain an option.

[avianlyric]

> 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,

For most of Europe transfers are instant. So you’ll know if you’ve been paid or not pretty much immediately because you get a push notification confirming the payment within seconds of someone hitting send.

[justsomehnguy]

> Because people like the assurance of a check, or a receipt, or a payment confirmation

What is more assuring then the actual payment itself, transferred to you just as you talk?

> How do you initiate a wire transfer? [...] -- their bank and account number, for starters

Ugh, 21st century says hi.

Just a mobile number, some provider independent number, like SEPA [0] or in some circumstances just the plain plastic card number, be it a debit or a credit one.

> Sure you could do it on a mobile device but seems a lot more time consuming than writing a check

Scribbling something on the paper and taking it to the ATM/bank (or use said mobile to "online check it", oh irony) is sure to take more time than punching in some number in mobile or web app and actually transferring money.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Euro_Payments_Area

[th3iedkid]

Reconciliation, Retries and other aspects are baked into that standardised payment system.There are countries that have completely abondoned cheques since early 2000s.