Bank Check Aviation

"J=FCrgen Exner" wrote:

Colin W Kingsbury wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...

The check operations that I'm familiar with used to haul checks
around towns within a state. These generally used smaller piston
powered GA aircraft.


There you have it. With a half dozen banks slowly taking the whole
industry over you're going from a point-to-point operation to a
hub-and-spoke one. Paper checks- just one more piece of the old world=

that our grandkids will find impossible to believe ever existed.

Let's say, the rest of the world finds it impossible to believe, that p=
aper
checks are still being used today in an industrialized country.

Standard personal checks have been replaced by Euro-Checks some 25 or 3=
0
years ago in Europe. However nobody would even think about paying his p=
hone,
dentist, mortgage, power, or whatever bill with a check. It's all elect=
ronic
transfer via direct deposit or automated withdrawel, even between priva=
te
people.
During maybe 15 years I probably used less than 10 checks total, mostly=
for
one-time larger purchases.

I was outright flabbergasted when 8 years ago I came to the motherland =
of
capitalism, working for one of the worlds largest high-tech(!) companie=
s,
and I would get a piece of paper printed with funny numbers instead of =
money
in my bank account.
The small company where my father worked back in Germany introduced dir=
ect
deposit for all their employees somewhere in the mid 60th of the last
century. And believe me, that company was anything but progressive.

And two(?) years ago even the paper Euro check for ad-hoc purchases was=

buried and now you only have something similar to direct debit, just wi=
th
the same guarantees and security as the former paper Euro check.

This paleozoic banking system of the US of A is nothing but a job guara=
ntee
for the postal service and a permanent annoyance for anyone who has to =
pay a
bill.

I'm afraid you don't know what you're talking about. First, anyone who h=
as to
pay a bill in the USA has the option of all kinds of bill payment service=
s,
offered by banks, third parties and also many payees themselves. Or they=
can
choose to pay by check. It is a personal choice.

I spend a great deal of the year in Europe, and I can assure anybody that=
paper
checks are *very* much alive there and are used all of the time. I know =
because
I always have to reorder the damn things. In stores, merchants will take=
care
to ensure there are sufficient funds for at least large amounts.

Euro check? I haven't dealt with those in a number of years now.

Finally, I worked for a small employer in the US in the early 90's and au=
tomatic
direct deposit was all but required (i.e. highly encouraged) for everyone=
=2E

On the other hand, payments by credit cards and debit cards serve as a ma=
ssive
income guarantee of merchant fees to banks and networks, which get passed=
on to
the consumer o course.