The E-Sylum:  Volume 8, Number 14, April 3, 2005, Article 16

THE VANISHING CHECK

The New York Times published an article titled
"Follow the Vanishing Check" on March 26, 2005.
Here are some excerpts:

"Larry Lyons, who is 23, vividly remembers the Saturday
mornings when his mother would write checks to pay the
family's bills, dispatching him to the landlord with one for
the rent. When he was in sixth grade, she taught him to
balance a checkbook.

What he has more trouble remembering is the last time
he wrote a check himself."

"Mr. Lyons and other young adults may belong to the
first check-free generation as they choose to handle
transactions almost entirely by debit card, credit card
and computer. The number of checks written in the
United States peaked sometime in the mid-1990's; it has
been falling precipitously for the last four years, according
to the Federal Reserve. At the same time, the number of
electronic payments has risen swiftly."

"Checks accounted for 45 percent of all payments that were
not made with cash in 2003, down from 57 percent in 2000.
Signs of the decline are everywhere. Card-swipe terminals
have become common at cash registers. Thirty-two percent
of the households in the United States used the Internet to
pay bills in some fashion in 2004, according to TowerGroup,
a research company owned by MasterCard."

"It is about time, said Richard Schmalensee, the dean of the
Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology and the author of a book about the payments
system.

"This is an American phenomenon," Mr. Schmalensee said.
"Everybody else pays by wire, electronic transfer.

In Belgium, for instance, bank-initiated money transfers and
credit and debit cards are far more popular than personal
checks; the situation is similar in countries like Japan and
Germany."

To read the full article, see: Full Story

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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