AFP Survey: Despite Fraud Risks, Paper Checks Surged in ’24
- The media claims "checks are dead"
- Reality shows checks surging
- Active check usage demands strong security
What mainstream media is saying about paper checks:
- Washington Post - 2023: "Paper checks are dead. Cashing is dying. Who still uses them?
- ABA Banking Journal - 2024: "Is it time to kill the paper check?"
- Fortune.com - 2025: "Paper checks are dying. Here's what you should use instead"
The reality: Paper checks surged in 2024.
According to the AFP's 2025 Annual Payments Fraud and Control Survey, the number of respondents reporting use of paper checks jumped from 75% in 2023 to 91% in 2024. The survey was conducted in January of 2025, receiving responses from 521 treasury and other financial department executives from a broad range of industries.
Commentary from a recent article from Payments Dive, notes that the association seemed at a loss to explain the rather counterintuitive result.
Why Paper Checks are Surging
The report offers a few theories as to why paper checks surged between 2023 to 2024. AFP’s director of enterprise payments practice, Andrew Deichler suggests that, in certain circumstances, organizations are forced to use checks:
“Our position is that more organizations are using checks because they are required to in some circumstances or that they are working with smaller organizations that use them,” AFP’s director of enterprise payments practice, Andrew Deichler, said by email. “Some organizations are in a place where they feel they can’t abandon checks.”
Another theory proposed is that organizations were "misled" regarding belief in paper payment security:
"While it is unclear why check usage increased somewhat dramatically in 2024, some organizations may have been misled into thinking that check payments are safer than digital payments," the report said. "This view is clearly false after reviewing the data collected" in the annual report since 2015.
Despite the fraud risks, the AFP report found that paper checks will remain the dominant payment channel; 75% of organizations surveyed have no plans to cut their check usage in the next two years.
2025 and Beyond
What is the future of checks? OrboGraph's Marketing Manager and Fraud Detection Specialist James Bi relates the sentiments of experts attending the recent ECCHO Operations Meeting:
"The idea that checks are going away has been around since the 80's. Many banking veterans at the ECCHO Operations Meeting shared their experience, noting that they have been hearing the same message for decades -- yet checks still persist. The consensus from more than 60 payments experts is that checks aren't going away anytime soon."
Indeed, checks will continue to be a major payment channel for years to come -- and financial institutions deploying AI-powered technologies like OrboAnywhere effectively automate the processing of checks, increasing efficiency while meeting customer payment preferences.