Abstract

The data from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), which were partially reproduced in Chapter 2, underscore the differences among countries in the usage of checks. It was seen that, according to the data from 2000, the annual rate of check utilization in the U.S. was 49.6 billion checks, which corresponds to 58.3% of the volume of scriptural transactions. This was still the highest usage among the G-10, even though it decreased significantly from 1996, when the corresponding data were 63 billion checks or 74.7% of the volume of scriptural transactions. The second highest rate was in France, where the portion of checks in the volume of scriptural transactions is 43.6% (4.5 billion checks) compared to about 1.3% in Switzerland and 0.2% in Sweden. Clearly, replacement of classical paper-based checks with dematerialized checks only interests those in areas where checks remain a significant payment instrument.