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Policy Discussion Paper, No. 5, November 2009
Digital Checks as Electronic Payment Orders

This paper explores the potential for a new type of electronic payment order (EPO), in the form of an entirely digital check. The digital check EPO could leverage the existing electronic check infrastructure and provide a convenient, low-cost payment option for both consumers and businesses, based on a payment method that they have found useful for many years. The overall efficiency of the payment system would increase as a result. The authors sketch out how this type of EPO might work both technically and legally. They suggest the opportunity might be ripe for a relatively small number of high-tech service providers to capture a significant share of the retail deposit market by building robust secure software on smart hand-held devices, rather than exclusively focusing on building bank branches to gather retail deposits.


Policy discussion papers are not edited, and all opinions and errors are the responsibility of the author(s). The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago or the Federal Reserve System.

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