Bridging the gap between paper checks and online payments

by. Rhende Wilton

This is an exciting time to be in the payments industry. Events like Finovate are loaded with new ideas on how to innovate within the financial services space. Although most of these innovations are focused on the consumer, three out of four businesses with less than $10 million in revenue continue to make the majority of their payments with paper checks, according to the MineralTree Small Business Banking Report. But, when the 300 small- and medium-sized business surveyed were asked if an online payment system that eliminates the need to write checks would interest them, 68 percent answered “Yes.”

This was highlighted in a recent article from Charles Keenan where he shared some of the benefits and drawbacks of checks. In the article, he also highlighted a session at BAI Payments Connect that entitled “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do: Small Businesses’ Love Affair with Checks”. Glen Sarvady plans to share some of his thoughts on this session in a future blog, so keep your eyes open for that.

There is obviously a disconnect between how many of these businesses currently make their payments and how they would like to make them. A number of reasons can be cited to explain this, but they can generally be grouped under one heading: Options.

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