Despite tech advances, paper checks are not going away

How many decades has the digital revolution promised us a paperless society? Anyone trying to un-jam their office printer today knows we’re a long way off. Paper checks also persist as something of a headache. Community banks continue to absorb a significant cost of paper check fraud. While not completely surprising, the numbers are ... a bit surprising, starting with the sheer number of paper checks still being written..SouthState, an Atlanta-based firm that serves as a consultant to community banks around the country looking to invest in technology while keeping their homespun character, writes in a recent blog: “For the second quarter of 2025, there were 11 million checks written every day totaling $34 billion, according to the latest Federal Reserve data. While the number of checks declines by about 8 percent every year, the fact that we still have the check is an embarrassment to banking. Often, the customer doesn’t understand the risk of writing a check nor their alternatives of instant payments and ACH. Other than putting a ‘5 Helpful Hints To Prevent Check Fraud’ on their website, many banks lack a concerted educational program to retrain households and businesses to move them to safer payment channels.”That’s some harsh criticism. The blog continues with a section called “The Ridiculousness of Checks.”“We write notations on a piece of paper that contains our name, the payee’s name, address, routing number, account number, a sample of our writing and our signature to then release it into the wild. Checks can be intercepted in transit for days without anyone knowing about it or raising suspicion. It’s ironic that every banker is taught not to make public account names and account numbers yet we allow this instrument to do it more than 12 million times per day. It is as if we are asking bad actors to steal from us.”Still, checks are here to stay for the foreseeable future. There are always new fintech tools looking to plug into the community bank environment and vastly reduce check fraud. Monit is such a newer fintech, and the company makes a great case for compelling community banks to upgrade how they deal with checks.“Bank Director’s 2025 Risk Survey reveals that 94 percent of bank executives report their institutions or customers have been directly affected by check fraud in the past 18 months, with check fraud up nearly 400 percent,” Monit claims. “A Fed survey also found that check fraud accounted for 30 percent of all bank fraud losses in 2024, second only to debit card fraud.”Four hundred percent? Yikes!Monit has launched a new tech tool called CheckSync that partners with Positive Pay to help community banks protect themselves and their commercial customers. Monit claims their system relies on a very small amount of buy-in from a business customer, but Positive Pay has to be implemented in their billing. Research provided by Monit says nearly 80 percent of businesses were victims of payments fraud attacks or attempts in 2025. Monit says Positive Pay can help avoid this, but the company also argues slightly more than one-third of businesses have adopted Positive Pay.Monit is looking at a bit of an uphill climb, but the simplicity of their concept is compelling. CheckSync uses a cloud-based system that securely connects to businesses’ QuickBooks accounts. Each hour, the system automatically scans for newly issued checks and transmits check data to the bank’s own Positive Pay system and, according to Monit, “provides real-time synchronization status and exception reporting, and maintains complete audit trails for compliance and dispute resolution. The solution requires no software installation, no training, and no ongoing maintenance from business users, addressing the exact pain points that have historically limited Positive Pay adoption.”“Every day without automated Positive Pay is another day of unnecessary risk for both banks and their business clients,” Stephen Dow, Monit CEO, said. “CheckSync changes that equation entirely, making comprehensive fraud protection as simple as connecting an account once. That’s the kind of innovation that actually moves the needle on fraud prevention.”Monit claims CheckSync integrates with existing Positive Pay use and through standard methods, minimizing IT costs. “Banks can typically complete implementation and begin onboarding business clients within 30 days,” Monit says.Monit is using dire data to promote the need for increased check fraud protection. None of the data is to be disbelieved, and the fintech is offering something cost effective and fairly unique given its partnership with Positive Pay. If it doesn’t sound like a good solution for any given community bank, Monit makes a great case for why all banks should take a hard look at how they harness tech to avoid check fraud.