Until a recent shift, paying your bills involved manually writing checks, looking for stamps, and taking time out of your day to go to the post office or the nearest mailbox. Today, these recurring payments are often made online using debit or credit cards, and eChecks. There are several common myths and misconceptions around electronic check processing that we will be clearing up:

Paper Check Security Features Are Safer

Financial institutions use several safeguards to minimize the risks of processing checks, such as specially treated paper, water marks, and other security measures.These help, but aren’t foolproof in the least. With electronic checks, the process involves tokenization, which provides even more security by substituting critical data with a randomized character string. This drastically reduces the risk of fraud and data theft.

Paper Checks Are More Cost-Effective

While processing paper checks is relatively low-tech, that doesn’t always translate into lower costs. On the contrary, with secure electronic check processing systems, there is no more need for manual inspection and processing, leading to significant savings.

For example, if your company processes 500 paper checks each month, that means thousands of dollars go to around two or three employees just to process invoices, stuff envelopes, and reconcile payments with software.

Customers Prefer Paper Checks

Since 2001, the use of paper checks have significantly declined. According to the last Fed report, the number of check payments in the country “had declined by almost exactly 2 billion per year for each of the previous 10 years.” Losing a physical checkbook also leads to multiple potential headaches, such as bounced checks. 

Electronic payment use has increased dramatically and it is primarily because of how quick and convenient eCheck processing is. Payments can be processed at all hours and in the security of a customer’s home.

Electronic check processing provides merchants and customers with a safe, reliable and convenient alternative to traditional payment methods. Get in touch with ReliaFund today to learn more about how our payment processing platform can transform your payments process.