Imagine paying for a new car with 3,000lbs of wheat. Centuries ago, that wasn’t far from reality. In the earliest days of buying and selling, those conducting business abroad faced a serious challenge.
How can you pay for goods or services without carrying large amounts of currency or commodities with you? The answer was simple – a promissory note could be carried more easily than large quantities of coin or grain and could be exchanged elsewhere for payment.
The humble check has taken dozens of forms throughout the ages – from inscribed clay tablets to the high-security financial instruments of today. But now, in the digital age, checks face stiffer competition than ever before. Earlier this year, a pair of executive orders were signed into law that could end the check as we know it – or perhaps not.
Executive Orders Prohibiting Check Payments from the Federal Government
On March 25, 2025, the President signed two executive orders directing the US Department of the Treasury to transition away from paper checks for federal disbursements.
Executive Order 14247 and Executive Order 14249 are aimed at digitizing federal payments and combating fraud. To accomplish these goals, all federal agencies are required to transition to electronic funds transfer (EFT) by September 30, 2025. Thankfully, the executive order includes limited exceptions to that September 30 deadline, especially in light of public commentary pointing out many serious issues.
What are Federal Disbursements?
In short, federal disbursements are payments made by the federal government. These payments may go to private citizens, contractors, vendors, and others.
The most common federal disbursements include:
Under this pair of executive orders, all of these payments will have to be made electronically – a small lift for municipalities and big businesses, but a serious change for some citizens and small businesses.
This begs the question: is such a major disruption justified given the challenges cited in the executive orders – those of check and mail fraud?
Zooming in On Fraud – Check & Mail Fraud by the Numbers
Is Check Fraud Really That Bad?
There’s no denying that check fraud is a serious issue affecting private citizens and institutions alike.
The Association for Financial Professionals (AFP) has been tracking the ups and downs of financial fraud over recent years by calculating the percentage of institutions affected.
In 2024, 79% of institutions reported financial fraud attempts, with 63% of institutions experiencing check fraud specifically. For context, in 2023, 80% of institutions reported general fraud with 65% of incidents blamed on checks.
In other words, from 2023 to 2024, general fraud has fallen by 1% while check fraud has dropped by 2%. Fraud is dropping slightly – good news for everyone.
What are the Most Common Forms of Financial Fraud?
When it comes to the origination of fraud, checks are a footnote compared to business email compromise (BEC). BEC is a type of phishing attempt relying on impersonation, malicious links, and false urgency to extract sensitive information.
According to the AFP’s Payments Fraud Survey Report, these were the most common sources of fraud reported in 2024:
*forged checks, stolen cards, corporate synthetic identity fraud.
Payments Fraud Survey Report
To be clear, mail fraud and forged checks (tactics other than email) appear on this list, but they’re not nearly as common as email fraud. Yet no executive order appears forthcoming that bars the use of email at American institutions or otherwise mandates cybersecurity training for financial professionals.
Is Mail Fraud Really That Bad?
Mail fraud and check fraud are often mentioned in the same breath. Postal interference is a significant contributing factor, after all. Statistics are scarce for mail fraud specifically, though a 2023 report by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) attributed $688 million in losses to mail fraud between February and August – a six-month period. Doubling that figure to account for a year’s worth of mail fraud amounts to a $1.3 billion estimate.
Package theft, meanwhile, accounted for $12 billion in losses throughout the 2024 calendar year – more than 9 times the cost of mail fraud in 2023. Porch pirates are more successful by far than fraudsters who steal checks from mailboxes.
Proposed Solutions & Likely Impacts
Are Electronic Payment Methods That Much Safer Than Checks?
Unfortunately, no payment method is 100% secure. Wherever money changes hands, there will be bad actors scheming to intercept it – from old fashioned mailboxes to encrypted cryptocurrency wallets.
Check fraud is among the least sophisticated forms, contributing to its prevalence today. But cybercrime, identity theft, and malware are evolving to take advantage of more modern forms of payment. The AFP’s report also breaks down methods of payment affected by business email compromise.
Transaction Types Most Affected by Business Email Compromise:
While the least sophisticated criminals focus on checks, others collect through electronic transactions. These numbers reveal that a simple email is all it takes to skim funds from the most modern (and supposedly more secure) payment methods.
Is Everyone Ready to Receive Electronic Payments?
The latest data enables us to see a big picture, but there’s a human cost to fraud that’s not so easily quantified. Though admirable in their aims, these executive orders put certain segments of the American public at a disadvantage.
Not everyone has access to smart phones (tap-to-pay) or reliable internet. Additionally, not everyone is educated on the most modern payment methods. In rural America and elsewhere, the absence of paper checks could have serious consequences for the most vulnerable among us.
Detractors of the executive orders have rightly pointed out that they could negatively affect:
Senior citizens on Social Security
Disabled Americans on Social Security
Rural communities
The unbanked
Small businesses nationwide
As of 2025, nearly 74 million Americans rely on social security – about 21% of the population. Another 5.6 million households are unbanked, meaning that no one at the residence uses or has access to banking services.
If those numbers seem troubling to you, then you’re not alone. On July 24, 2025, the Social Security Administration backtracked on discontinuing paper checks for recipients who relied on them. While ambitious, these executive orders are not without complications that could take months or years to solve.
Is This the End of Paper Checks? No, Not Even Remotely.
Paper Checks Usage: 91%
To the growing pile of percentage points, we can add one more from the AFP’s report: 91% of surveyed organizations continue using paper checks – up from 75% in 2023. Checks aren’t just popular still; they’re demonstrably more popular than in recent memory.
The advent of high security checks – featuring microprint signature lines, 3D hologram foils, and other advanced printing techniques – has put the payment method back on the map. AI fraud detection and other emerging technologies are also reversing vulnerabilities.
So, while some in offices high and low insist the check is dead, many American citizens and businesses would simply disagree.
Sources:
Banca d’Italia. 2024. “Bank of Italy – Mesopotamian Clay Tablets.” Bancaditalia.it. 2024. https://www.bancaditalia.it/servizi-cittadino/musei-collezioni/museo-moneta/tavolette-mesopotamiche/index.html?com.dotmarketing.htmlpage.language=1&dotcache=refresh
“Modernizing Payments to and from America’s Bank Account.” 2025. The White House. March 25, 2025. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/modernizing-payments-to-and-from-americas-bank-account
Leddy, Maureen. 2025. “Transition Challenges Expected as Treasury Goes Paperless.” Thomson Reuters Tax & Accounting News. July 8, 2025. https://tax.thomsonreuters.com/news/transition-challenges-expected-as-treasury-goes-paperless
“Finance and Treasury Survey Research & Economic Data.” 2025. AFP. 2025. https://www.financialprofessionals.org/training-resources/resources/survey-research-economic-data/details/payments-fraud
“FinCEN Issues In-Depth Analysis of Check Fraud Related to Mail Theft | FinCEN.gov.” 2024. Fincen.gov. September 9, 2024. https://www.fincen.gov/news/news-releases/fincen-issues-depth-analysis-check-fraud-related-mail-theft
Adkins, Matthew. 2023. “2021 Package Theft Annual Report.” Security.org. November 1, 2023. https://www.security.org/package-theft/annual-report
Desilver, Drew. 2025. “What the Data Says about Social Security.” Pew Research Center. May 20, 2025. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/05/20/what-the-data-says-about-social-security
“FDIC Survey Finds 96 Percent of U.S. Households Were Banked in 2023 | FDIC.gov.” 2024. Fdic.gov. 2024. https://fdic.gov/news/press-releases/2024/fdic-survey-finds-96-percent-us-households-were-banked-2023
Picchi, Aimee. 2025. “Social Security Retreats from Plan to Eliminate Paper Checks for Beneficiaries.” Cbsnews.com. July 24, 2025. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/social-security-benefits-paper-checks-ending-reversal
