A check is still the best P2P payment vehicle? Some say, "Sad, but it’s true!"

The vision of P2P payments is like a dream for mobile app vendors and bank executives who love digital payments. Let’s say you want to give or pay money to a friend, relative, or even small business. I recently went through this exercise several times.

And guess what? To my surprise, the best option was still a check!

Let me explain before the digital advocates hammer my experience…

I go to PayPal. My first transfer goes through nicely, but it takes 3 days. Then I try it a week later, for a little more money, and — boom! 6 days before the money gets into the account of my friend… Paypal said it was on hold.

Ok — why?

No real answer, just that it was “under review.”  At least it was free. Thanks, but no thanks…

I go to my credit union, who offers PopMoney. PopMoney has a $.50 per transfer fee. Ok, that’s fine.  I send the money out on a Thursday. When does it get to the designated account? Wednesday, the following week! Great… why?  Because it takes 3 “business days,” and there was a holiday on Monday, and the weekend isn’t a business day, and blah blah blah. Thanks but no thanks. Give me my $.50 back!

I started researching options to send money.  There are a gazillion articles written…here’s one of them: Everything You Need to Know About PayPal, Square Cash and Venmo. I’m getting tired reading all this stuff. Sure, I can go download an app and make it happen but I don’t feel like reading the disclosures and comparing different options. I’m going to bed.

I give my friend a check on Monday. An hour later she goes to her local branch to deposit it and gets 100% immediate availability! WOW. The check clears and posts to my account on Tuesday, with a memo post Tuesday a.m.

Beautiful. And it’s free…

What the heck???  An interesting testimony on why paper checks live on, and that’s why OrboGraph is introducing OrboAnywhere…