To combat fraud, companies are rationalizing their banking relationships and moving away from checks to digital payment solutions. But they're doing so slowly.

That's a key finding of the recent "SunGard B2B Payments and Bank Connectivity Study." Nearly 400 treasury and finance professionals from around the world responded to the survey. Among those with more than $1 billion in annual revenue, 15 percent said their company uses paper checks more than any other payment method. Checks were supplanted years ago as the most common payment method; this year, electronic funds transfer (EFT), wire, and Automated Clearing House (ACH) were each cited by around a quarter of respondents as their most prevalent payment method (see Figure 1, below). Still, the companies that remain check-heavy are making more than 20 million payments per year via paper checks, putting those organizations at significant risk of check fraud.

"We still see substantial check use in the U.S.," reports Andrew Owens, head of SunGard's AvantGard Payments business. "It's coming down, and I think it's coming down precisely because of the effort to reduce fraud. As fraud prevention and control become more important, we're also seeing the barrier to entry coming down for moving to a single-payment solution and connectivity."