When did you last go to the dentist? OK, maybe too personal. How about this: when and why did you last write a check? For me, it was in December, for my annual purchase of Tag-a-Longs from my niece's Girl Scout troop. My check use is infrequent, but sometimes a check is still my go-to payment instrument. Even though the Federal Reserve Payments Study has found that the number of check payments in the United States declined from 41.9 billion 
in 2000 to 14.5 billion in 2018, U.S. businesses and consumers—like me—continue to use checks for all kinds of reasons, according to the 2018 Check Sample Survey (CSS) report, just published by the Atlanta Fed. The CSS reports check use by businesses and consumers based on a sample of checks cleared by the Federal Reserve in 2018.
Previous iterations of the CSS, which has been conducted since 2001, the 2018 survey estimated percentage shares of checks paid both by purpose (bill, POS, income, casual, and indeterminate) and by payer and payee (business and consumer). In 2018, for the first time, the report includes data about checks returned, allowing for detailed analysis of returns by reason code, including possible fraud. Checks returned are items that the paying depository institution has chosen not to honor and which the Federal Reserve subsequently returns to the depositing institution.
Among the findings:
- Just over half of checks are written by consumers.
- Businesses are the recipients of two-thirds of checks.
- The median value of a check written by a consumer is $116; by a business, $357.
- Checks written by businesses made up three-fourths of total check value.
- Checks returned for insufficient funds, which also include uncollected funds holds (funds on deposit but not yet available for withdrawal), were two-thirds of return items by number and half of return items by value.
Want to know more? Join us on Thursday, August 27, from 2 to 3 p.m. (ET), when I and my Retail Payments Risk Forum colleagues delve into the CSS findings in greater detail on our Talk About Payments webinar. You must register in advance to participate. Once you've registered, we'll send you a confirmation email with the access information. (There is no fee for the webinar.)
And before that next dentist visit, why don't you "do-si-do" on over to the Atlanta Fed website and see the report for yourself. You can download the report and Excel data tables and explore, drill down, and be part of the August 27 webinar discussion. Hope to see you there!
By Nancy Donahue, a project manager in the Retail Payments Risk Forum at the Atlanta Fed