Germany is getting rid of paper checks at the end of 2027. Australia is bidding them farewell by 2030. U.S. President Donald Trump followed up his order killing off the penny with an executive order stopping check writing by the federal government.

Should the U.S. follow these other countries and broadly eliminate the ability to write checks?

Years ago, experts predicted that checks would have disappeared by now. However, they are still around, and billions are written each year in the United States.

Why? The quick answer is that businesses love them. And plenty of Americans still use checks for good reasons. But there is more to the story.

I am a business school professor and one of the few academics who advocates for the use of cash. While I have long told everyone about the benefits of paper money, I didn’t give paper checks much thought or use them until my mother’s recent death. Then I found myself writing checks to the cemetery, funeral home, gravestone engraver and a host of other places. Plus, I started getting refund checks back from her landlord and insurance companies.

These experiences made me look more deeply into this form of payment to understand what was happening.

Fewer checks for bigger bucks

Every three years the U.S. government runs the Federal Reserve Payments Study by asking banks and credit unions for internal information. This survey tracks everything from how often credit cards are used to the number of checks........

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