I support expanding access to the financial system. But many of those people are blocked because they wrote bad checks. What would you suggest to do with them?

Don’t offer checks nor overdraft protection. That way, you’re not offering credit and don’t need to gate them from a deposit account because of a previous bad check or other derogatory credit event.

Simple did not offer checks (at least pre BBVA acquisition, when I had an account with them), for example.

The Fed is rolling out instant payments in 2023, after which I expect checks to be obsolete and no longer offered by financial institutions.

> The Fed is rolling out instant payments in 2023, after which I expect checks to be obsolete and no longer offered by financial institutions.

We are at least a decade away from the time when checks are not used, probably two. For that to happen the baby boomers must be nearly completely gone from the workforce. The reason why we still use checks is because a lot of businesses are still owned and operated by the boomers whose processes are

send out bills => receive checks => mark payments on accounts in folders => deposit a batch of checks into an account.

Those are the lifestyle business whose owners/managers are in the last decade of retiring. They won't be either upgrading or selling them.

Some places add on fees for paying by EFT or credit card. When the fee is something like the greater of $3 or 3%, that's an incentive to continue paying by check.

> But many of those people are blocked because they wrote bad checks. What would you suggest to do with them?

Allow only direct transfer of money already in account, do not accept checks?

From stories about fraud - ones that require bad checks are especially unusual to me. Because in Europe checks seem to be basically gone, at least I have never accepted or made one.

In theory bank transfer may be reversed, but I have not heard about popular frauds centered around it, so it is likely harder to achieve.

I can make a bank transfer, but only if I have enough money in my account.

Is it solving the problem, or is having ability to produce checks absolutely necessary in USA and not replaceable by bank transfers for some reason?

Those in the EU have IBAN and instant transfers (both in country and between other countries in the EU; I believe the max SLA for payments to settle is no more than 20 seconds). The US does not yet have such a system, but it’s being built (domestic instant transfers).

> In theory bank transfer may be reversed, but I have not heard about popular frauds centered around it, so it is likely harder to achieve.

AFAIK, the initiating party cannot revert a completed transfer. What can be reversed is a SEPA withdrawal, up to 6(?) weeks after it has completed.

What in case of transfer from illegal sources or mistaken ones?

Maybe it requires manual bank action, and cannot be done by sender.

But there is still risk that money appeared in your account and then disappeared.

But vastly lower than with checks.

So what you are saying is people who made a bad decision should be cut out from society?

Do you think these people will then magically disappear?

Or would they instead be forced into more desperate circumstances where it is even harder for them to act in a way which benefits society?

Look, of course we need consequences for bad decisions. However, and more importantly, we also need a path to redemption.

Banks already use secured credit cards to help people with no credit or bad credit build it. People with spotty banking history can do the same.