Can you still use a check to make purchases? In increasing numbers of stores across the U.S., the answer is “no.” The large retailer Target stopped accepting checks on July 15, 2024. It follows decisions a decade earlier by supermarket chains Whole Foods and Aldi to no longer accept this form of payment.

Target said it was phasing out checks because not many customers use them. It’s a fair point: Check usage has fallen dramatically around the world in recent decades.

However, as a business school professor who studies how people pay for goods and services, I wonder if Target might have another, unspoken motivation. After all, customers started the switch away from checks years ago. What’s new today is a rise in check fraud.

Checks have been around a long time — centuries, in fact. Paper checks are simply directions telling banks how much money to move from one account to another. Today, these directions take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks to be carried out. That’s why stores prefer customers pay with debit cards, which act like checks but remove money from an account immediately.

Checks were a huge part of the U.S. economy only a few decades ago. The Federal Reserve, the U.S.’s central bank, processed 17 billion checks a year back........

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