Intesa Sanpaolo says goodbye to Bank checks. Once very used by all account holders for many types of payments, today they have become an obsolete tool, used by very few. To replace them over the years have in fact arrived i digital payments, home banking and apps, which made them de facto almost useless. And so there are those who have decided to retire them.
Intesa Sanpaolo retires bank checks
Intesa Sanpaolo is in fact the first Italian bank to decide to scrap checks. These days, customers of the bank led by Carlo Messina are receiving a message: "From 8 May you will no longer be able to use your checkbook”. The past is pushed away, the future is implemented. In the same message, Intesa communicates that “starting from the same date, you will be able to carry out online instant transfers without any additional commission, at the same cost as the bank transfer in Italy”.
At the moment the novelty would only concern a few thousand customers, but over time the farewell to checks will be extended to everyone. “Many customers they hardly use checks anymore paper – they say from Intesa Sanpaolo -. We have offered them an alternative method of payment, digital, therefore more immediate and obviously with the same economic conditions".
Cheques: data from the Bank of Italy
Intesa Sanpaolo's decision is also endorsed by the latest data released in September 2022 by the Bank of Italy which confirm "the sunset of checks” as a payment system. According to the report "Payment System", in fact, the number of operations carried out with checks would be by now less than 1 percent of the total payments with instruments other than cash. A share that has slipped ever lower in recent years (in 2013 it was around 5%) and which now seems to be heading towards complete zeroing. On the contrary, the percentage of card payments, which has now exceeded 60% of the total.
