Dive Brief:

• Electronic ACH payments through the automated clearing house were the most popular form of business-to-business payment in 2024, based on an analysis this month by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. That’s a big change from 2015 when paper checks ranked as the top B2B choice, but they have since fallen to the fourth most popular among five types, based on the number of transactions, the Fed study said.
• The number of B2B transactions in the U.S. by way of ACH payments more than doubled between 2015 and 2024, jumping to 8.7 billion from 3.6 billion, according to the Fed analysis, which used data from the central bank’s triennial payments study and the Association for Financial Professionals to zero in on business payments.
• As of 2024, 41% of B2B payments were by ACH, compared to 25% a decade earlier, while the share made by checks “fell significantly” to just 13% in 2024, down from 32% in 2015, the Fed study published Sept. 18 said.

Dive Insight:

U.S. businesses have long lagged the transition to electronic payments, preferring to keep using paper checks for various reasons, including the cost of implementing systems that might allow for electronic payments or an attachment to the settlement lag time that keeps the funds in their accounts longer. Now, the pattern is changing more appreciably.

“Over the past decade, U.S. businesses have shifted from checks to electronic methods, especially ACH, to make B2B payments,” the Fed study said. “Checks were the most used method for B2B payments in 2015 but have ranked fourth since 2021.” 

Even though the Fed study was able to chart businesses’ move away from paper checks toward ACH payments, credit and debit cards as of 2024, a survey that year by the Association for Financial Professionals still showed a clear business inclination to keep using checks. The number of respondents reporting use of checks for payments surged to 91% in 2024, up from 75% in 2023, according to a report last year from the Association for Financial Professionals. 

That’s despite a rise in recent years of check fraud across the U.S., including through mail theft and check-washing schemes.

Nonetheless, the Fed study this month also showed the total value of B2B payments is clearly moving away from checks. As the number of ACH payments has increased, the value of those payments has also climbed, nearly doubling to $70 trillion by 2024, up from $36 trillion in 2015, according to the Fed study. By contrast, the value of checks used has remained steady at $15 trillion. 

Meanwhile, the use of credit and debit cards for business-to-business transactions has also risen over the decade from 2015 to 2024, based on the number of payments, as the use of wires for payments has increased only slightly during that period. Credit cards were the second most popular form of payment, after ACH, followed by debit, then check and finally wire.

Based on the value of B2B payments, the Fed’s study showed a very different picture. Wire payments, which have long been used for larger payments requiring more certainty, were the most popular form of payment based on value. They skyrocketed to $1 quadrillion as of 2024, up from $820 trillion in 2015, the study showed. 

As ACH payments doubled in value, they became the second choice. Although the value of debit cards and credit cards also almost doubled, their amounts were relatively small, $4 trillion or less, especially relative to wire, ACH and checks. 

“The decline in the number of B2B check payments has resulted mainly from businesses using checks less intensively rather than ending their use of checks entirely,” the Fed study concluded. “Indeed, nearly 90 percent of businesses still used checks in 2025.”