Will check-writing disappear?

Our society doesn't have one official rite-of-passage to mark our transition from childhood into adulthood. We do have a few things, of various significance, such as getting a driver's license, or getting married, or getting one's own car, or graduating from high school, or getting a full-time job, or getting one's own smart phone. To me, one of the growing up rites-of-passage was getting old enough to have my own bank account, and being able to pay for things by writing checks on my account.

Now it appears that this sign of adulthood which once ranked as major in my mind is slowly fading from the scene. Even many of the places where I pay by check tell me, "Oh you don't need to write out your check, we can just handle it as an electronic funds transfer." I don't even have to sign my check (which still seems weird); but I am asked to sign on one of those electronic signature gizmos which butchers my signature. Now that credit cards and debit cards have become commonplace methods for paying for things, and now that my checks are frequently processed electronically on the spot with the check returned to me, I'm made to wonder if checks will eventually fade away as instruments for transacting business? At one time, when I first worked at a job out in the public, to carry my paycheck to the bank and to make the deposit at the teller's window was a very satisfying thing to me. I later came to occasionally use the night depository at my bank, as the banks began offering that service. Now, it seems that one can do his banking at the drive-up station, or even without ever going to the bank at all. Although I have never tried it, I'm told one can make a deposit using a smart phone just by taking a picture of the check and sending that to the bank via the Internet. One can work over the Internet to check on the activity on his account (I like that), and can also pay bills online. I've never done on-line bill paying. We can also set up auto-pay to have the bank automatically draft our account to pay certain bills. Changes! Changes!

I'm remembering my first bank account at the Bank of Pea Ridge, beginning in the late 1950s. Accounts were free, and checks were free. I don't remember ever paying any service charge. Yesterday I went to the bank to order a new supply of checks. That's something we never did in the old days. Checks were available as counter checks in pads of about 30 checks, or in folding checkbooks which featured a record stub attached to each check. A good customer filled out the stub for each check written, keeping a running account balance and keeping tabs on what was paid and to whom paid. Our checks had no imprinted account numbers, no routing numbers, no check numbers, no imprinted names or addresses or phone numbers or driver's license numbers. There were no personalized checks such as we commonly use today. The checks were imprinted with the name and location of the bank, and the signature of the check-writer sufficed to identify the account. Somehow that was enough information to accomplish shipping the check back to the bank, and deducting the amount paid from the customer's account. At the end of the month, we received our monthly bank statement, and along with it, all our cancelled checks (not images, but the actual checks). The cancelled checks were returned bundled together and wrapped in the sheets of the statement. Who does that anymore? One of the reasons the new electronic funds transfer process was mysterious and confusing to old-timers was that in our day, a check was not fully paid until it had been physically returned to the check-writer's bank, where the actual payment was finally done. At first it was hard to conceive that the bill was actually paid, since the check was never physically sent to the bank. To some of us, a virtual check is still a weird concept. We come to understand and to accept it, but it still seems unreal, and weird.

I frankly still have a lingering skepticism about banking over the Internet. Although advances have been made in on-line security systems, it still seems to me that the Internet is an inherently vulnerable system which exposes all transactions to a measure of risk. But, alas, even our old-fashioned checks were not greatly secure. Checks can be stolen, the ink of our writing can be washed off, and the thief can write in his own fraudulent information. How simple and pleasant our transactions could be if we didn't always have to be guarding against dishonest people!

I am accepting some of the changes and new systems of banking and paying, but I still like to pay by check and to take checks to the inside teller's windows for deposit. I still like face-to-face banking, old-fashioned though it may be!

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Editor's note: Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge, is an award-winning columnist, a retired Methodist minister with a passion for history. He is vice president of the Pea Ridge Historical Society. He can be contacted by e-mail at [email protected], or call 621-1621.

Editorial on 08/12/2015