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Cheques being phased out in Australia by 2030
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nctnico:

--- Quote from: TimFox on October 17, 2023, 06:16:54 pm ---My large bank (Bank of America) in the US has implemented ATMs all over its territory, both in branch banks (to reduce their labor force) and in free-standing locations.
They can accept deposits in cash (no coins), as well as dispense cash (in certain denominations).

--- End quote ---
You can find similar ATMs over here for many years already. More recently ATMs have been standarised so they work for all banks c.q. the bank specific ATMs are dissapearing. But this only goes to show that banks like to work without cash and have people use their debit / credit cards / digital payments for transactions.
CatalinaWOW:
There still remain the follow the money questions.

ATMs in the US are tied together in networks so virtually any card can be used at any ATM.  But if the ATM is not from your home bank there is a fee.  The fee varies depending on whether the ATM is from a bank or company that is in one of the several alliances, or is a private ATM (often found in bars, convenience stores and places where gambling is allowed).  Those fees are smallest within the close alliances, sometimes even waived and are $3-$4 for the bulk of non-native transactions and go up to $5+ for the private machines.

Back when checks were in vogue no checking account drew interest, and low risk investments brought in 3-5% interest.  The banks covered their costs and made their money on the float in the checking accounts.  In recent years the low risk investments draw 1-2% and banks obviously don't appreciate the reduced profits or even losses.  The fees they charge on electronic transfers don't depend on the float and for credit transactions seem to run in the 2-4 percent range.  The banks must really love the folks making $40 cash withdrawals from the ATMs and paying a $3.50 fee.  Much better rate of return than on credit cards.

The fraud exposure question is interesting.  In more than 50 years of check usage I have never had a check stolen and used to attack my account or had the amount modified on a check I have written, and only a couple of checks which bounced due to insufficient funds in the check writers account.  I have however had fraudulent charges on credit and debit cards on half a dozen occasions, with multiple charges in the majority of those cases.  What is more interesting is that from the banks point of view the risk from checks is lower since (at least at the banks I have dealt with) they don't cover any losses and in fact they often charge a fee to both the writer and recipient for a bounced check.  While (at least here in the US) the banking companies are responsible for a significant part of the losses for credit card fraud and often for debit cards. 

In my mind there are two things going on here.  The Australian government finds use of EFT cheaper and thus wants to eliminate checks.  I suspect one of the biggest savings for the government is mailing costs.  I don't know if Australia uses franking (term in US for the governments use of the mail without paying postage), but even with that the envelopes and checks and machines to stuff them do cost as does the actual delivery, and at government scale it is a sizeable chunk of change.    Meanwhile the banks find EFT more profitable and prefers that business.

The lifestyle benefits or drawbacks probably don't matter a whit in these decisions.
TimFox:
My experience with checks and credit-card fraud in the US is similar to CatalinaWOW.
I have been using checks since 1966, and have never had a check stolen, nor modified, but had one check to me from a personal sale that bounced, back in 1975.

Since I only use credit cards (along with an ATM card that is not a debit card), I have had a few episodes of credit-card fraud attempted on me.
I believe that each actual fraud attempt was caught by the card issuer (both American Express and Visa), who notified me promptly.
In each case, I still had physical possession of the card, but the numbers had been compromised somehow.
The card issuers were quick to fix the problem, but I had to wait for delivery of a replacement card (with different numbers) and to notify some recurring-payment vendors.

My favorite episode was some miscreant trying to order expensive stuff from Apple, apparently only knowing my name.
The idiot outside agent for Apple handling his request happily looked up my record with Apple, and charged it to my Amex card, but they caught it.
Apparently, they thought it strange that I would order an expensive computer drop-shipped to Hong Kong, instead of Chicago.
This was the morning when I was leaving for Japan.
I dealt with the Amex fraud department about this before leaving, but of course could not get a new card before departure.

My frustration with these episodes (besides logistics on card replacement, which was inevitable) is that, by policy, they never tell me what happened with their attempts (if any) to catch the perpetrator.
I do not look with favor on being forced to do everything online, regardless of my own preference.
coppice:

--- Quote from: CatalinaWOW on October 17, 2023, 09:48:19 pm ---There still remain the follow the money questions.

ATMs in the US are tied together in networks so virtually any card can be used at any ATM.  But if the ATM is not from your home bank there is a fee.
--- End quote ---

This used to be the case in many places. In the UK these days you'll find a lot of ATMs with a "FREE CASH" sign, which might sound bizarre to an outsider, but simply means no fees for an account with any UK bank. We are well beyond the point where running a comprehensive ATM network was a competitive advantage. Cash use is now low enough the banks want to provide an adequate service with the minimum ATMs, so they are happy to share resources.
nctnico:

--- Quote from: CatalinaWOW on October 17, 2023, 09:48:19 pm ---The fraud exposure question is interesting.  In more than 50 years of check usage I have never had a check stolen and used to attack my account or had the amount modified on a check I have written, and only a couple of checks which bounced due to insufficient funds in the check writers account.  I have however had fraudulent charges on credit and debit cards on half a dozen occasions, with multiple charges in the majority of those cases.  What is more interesting is that from the banks point of view the risk from checks is lower since (at least at the banks I have dealt with) they don't cover any losses and in fact they often charge a fee to both the writer and recipient for a bounced check.  While (at least here in the US) the banking companies are responsible for a significant part of the losses for credit card fraud and often for debit cards. 

--- End quote ---
It could be fraud from checks is mostly visible to banks compared the fraud with credit/debit cards which is also visible to the customer. Over here banks are quite lenient towards covering losses due to skimming and phising (and other internet related fraud methods). I guess that is still cheaper for the banks compared to dealing with cash money (which can also be stolen but this is not visible to the customer).

Germany has quite a bit of problems with gangs (from the NL) that blow up ATMs to steal the money for a long time already. Besides tens of millions of euros that got stolen, the cost for the damage caused is in the hundreds of million euros. Not to mention safety for the people living near the ATMs. The criminals don't care about loss of life they may cause at all.
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