stylistic:tone, structural:expansion, structural:scholar_edition
Declining use

Cheque usage has been declining since the 1990s, both for point of sale transactions (for which credit cards, debit cards or mobile payment apps are increasingly preferred) and for third party payments (for example, bill payments), where the emergence of telephone banking has accelerated the decline, online banking, and mobile banking. Being paper-based, cheques are costly for banks to process in comparison to electronic payments, so banks in many countries now discourage the use of cheques, either by charging for cheques or by making the alternatives more attractive to customers. In particular, the handling of money transfers requires more effort and is time-consuming. The cheque has to be handed over in person or sent through mail. The rise of automated teller machines (ATMs) means that small amounts of cash are often easily accessible, so that it is sometimes unnecessary to write a cheque for such amounts instead. A number of countries have announced or have already completed the end of cheques as a means of payment.

In October 2023, the average American wrote just over one check, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. The average value of these checks was $504, suggesting that most checks were used for larger purchases. This marks a significant decline from the year 2000 when Americans wrote an average of 60 checks annually.