Is the check condemned to disappear? It is in any case a track seriously envisaged by the Treasury. According to Bercy data, in ten years, the number of checks collected by public services fell by 72%, to fall to 39 million in 2024. By way of comparison, in 2000, checks represented still 37% of transactions. Today, they are only 3%. Since 2019, it has also been prohibited to set your taxes by check beyond 300 euros, under penalty of an increase. And according to a note sent to unions in early July, a reflection is “committed to the future of the check as a means of payment”. Bercy even plans to close the last public checks of checks in 2027, located in Rennes, leaving their treatment to private providers, such as the Tessi group. On the ground, the decline is already clearly visible. In businesses, checks are less and less accepted, especially due to their high fraud rate. Mélina, a cheese maker on a Parisian market, testifies: “We no longer have confidence. However, some customers, especially the older ones, remain attached. The Economist Pascale Hebel stresses that it is mainly the least connected or most fragile populations that still use this payment method. For its part, Bercy assures that no official date has yet been fixed for its deletion, but the countdown seems to be launched.
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