Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by serf 938 days ago
55% of Americans wrote a check last year.[0]

I get being adamant, and I couldn't agree more -- i'd have to be really convinced to mail a check, but let's not act like it's unheard of.

[0]:https://finance.yahoo.com/news/almost-half-americans-not-wri...

2 comments

I write checks a couple times monthly to a housekeeper and other service people and my bank writes a few more. Writing a check is higher friction than other payment schemes but it’s pretty routine in the US.
But it's absolutely plummeting:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/09/15/paper-che...

Rates of check-writing have been falling relatively linearly since 1995, and at the current rate it will drop to zero by around 2030.

Want to make a bet that it's not zero by 2030?
I dunno... I mean, a lot of things decrease but don't go completely extinct, like writing with fountain pens.

But check-writing requires institutions to support it. At some point they're going to pull the plug. Kind of how analog broadcast TV ended in 2009.

2030 is certainly too soon, as the decrease will slow at some point, but I'd absolutely bet money that physical writing of personal checks is no longer supported in the US by 2040. With a decline of usage, the costs of fraud are going to outweigh their benefits. (And we can finally go back to sidewalk mailboxes with normal-size openings that you can drop small packages in, since mailbox-fishing won't have a target anymore.)

Cashier's checks will stick around though, since they fulfill a different purpose. And printed business checks for things like account refunds will persist as well. But printed checks like these aren't subject to the levels of fraud personal ones are, and can easily be made even more secure.