GOBankingRates Finds 38% of Americans Have Quit Writing Checks

Video killed the radio star -- and the Internet killed traditional checking, according to new survey data from leading personal finance website GOBankingRates.com

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GOBankingRates

Mar 04, 2014, 09:15 ET

LOS ANGELES, March 4, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- With the increasing availability of mobile and online banking options, it's no surprise that traditional checking account products like paper personal checks are falling out of usage. In the latest GOBankingRates survey, which asked how often banking customers wrote personal checks, the most common response was "never" (37.8%), followed by "several times a month" (25.6%), "a few times a year" (20.5%) and "once a month" (16.1%).

CLICK HERE to see the full study findings.

"Age played a big part in check writing frequency," Casey Bond, GOBankingRates managing editor, noted. "This suggests that as older bank customers continue to adopt online and mobile alternatives, we'll see a comparable decline in the use of traditional checking features like personal checks."

GOBankingRates Checkbook Survey Highlights

The youngest demographic polled, 18-24, were most likely to never write checks.
Older respondents were more likely to write checks several times a month than younger respondents.
Men were more likely to never write checks than women.
Every single respondent polled making $150,000 and up reported writing checks several times a month.

"Increased convenience and adoption of online banking technologies are the largest factors reducing the number of checks being written today," Kyle Kolsky, SVP Head of Consumer Deposits at Bank of Internet, told GOBankingRates. "Consumers are becoming more tech-savvy and realize that online banking is more convenient and secure than using paper checks … Younger consumers rely on debit card transactions or person-to-person money transfer services and may never write a check, similar to consumer behavior in Europe."

Polling was conducted through Google Consumer Surveys from February 19 – 21, 2014 for a total of 1,501 responses with a RMSE score of 2.0 percent.

About GOBankingRates

GOBankingRates (http://www.gobankingrates.com/) is a personal finance website that connects consumers with the best interest rates nationwide on savings, checking, money market and CD accounts, as well as auto loans. Its editors have been featured on several top media outlets, including U.S. News & World Report, Yahoo! Finance, Forbes, The Street, Huffington Post and more.

For information on managing your checking account in today's online banking age, please visit http://www.gobankingrates.com/checking-accounts/.

Contact:

Connie Lundegard
[email protected]
310.297.9233 x112

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SOURCE GOBankingRates