Checks are checking out

Checks are going the way of the green eyeshade at the nation's banks.

Americans now use checks to pay their bills less than one-third of the time. More than two-thirds of non-cash transactions involve electronic money transfers.

Those findings, released Monday in the latest Federal Reserve study of the U.S. payments system, showed that the use of debit and credit surged by about 19 billion transactions from 2003 to 2006.

In the same period, the number of payments by check fell by about 7 billion.

The fastest-growing electronic payments -- up 19 percent -- are automated clearinghouse transactions. Those payments involve transactions such as direct deposits of payroll checks and monthly electronic payments of mortgages and other bills.

However, the Fed isn't writing off the paper check just yet.

"With around 33 billion checks written in 2006, we expect checks to be around for some time," it said.

MIKE MEYERS