The End of Checks

Since I am not Jewish, the day I became a man was in my freshman year of high school, when I got my own checkbook. This rite of passage will cease to exist sooner rather than later. My daughters got checkbooks. My grandchildren will not.

A recent story in the New York Times examined a lot of reasons checks are still used in this country, despite being greatly diminished. Curse you print! When I wrote the reporter to mention already checkless countries, he said he didn’t mention them  because there was “no room.” (I remember with the coming of the Internet I celebrated the end of space restraints, a freedom I have been abusing ever since)

Here is a partial list (mostly from Wikipedia) of countries that have ended the use of checks. The U.S., the U.K  and Australia have that as a stated goal, but can’t overcome political opposition.

• Finland stopped issuing checks in 1993, the Netherlands abolished them in 2002, and Denmark no longer uses them.
• China, South Korea, and Japan
• New Zealand

Most of Africa is expected to go straight from cash to electronic payments, with no pause in-between at checks, the same as it did with telephones, moving from nothing to cellphones with no stop at landlines.