Why do Checks Still Dominate B2B Payments in North America?

There's no doubt that checks are easy. But, they're equally easy on both sides of the Atlantic. It is true that the supplier name and address - the two pieces of information required to cut a check - are readily available on the supplier's invoice. But, in Continental Europe, if not also in the UK, bank details are as easily available - not just in invoices but even in the footer section of company letterheads. This makes B2B ePayments fairly easy in Continental Europe.  

Why is it more difficult to get hold of bank details in the US? I presume it has to do with support of certain remote ACH payment types in the US, which force individuals and companies to keep their bank details confidential, unlike in Continental Europe.

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it," is a saying that earned a lot of repetition a decade ago. 

Yes, making payments via checks for US to US B2B is part of a well oiled process.  In today's environment, business units must show value to the company as a whole to get an IT project the green light. 

Moving from Check payments to electronic payments would require significant IT resources -- soft dollar as well as hard dollar -- time, people, hardware, and software.  

Where is the value to the company in relation to other projects that might generate revenue instead of cost savings?  How do you generate a business case justifying making the change when "it ain't broke?"

@Sandra G: This age-old saying has frustrated many a technology provider over the years, including me! But, there's an approach to counter the apathy resulting from it, and it is: "What if you don't know it's broken?" The technology provider needs to invest far more in creating an alternative packaging of their offering in order to carry off this counter approach. But, from personal experience, I can confirm that it has worked on many occasions, especially when the alternative packaging can be made to resonate well with industry hot topics and business pain areas.  

But this is part of the issue -- what "pain" is doing checks over electronic payments causing?  Until the cost of paying by checks becomes painful - there isn't a business driver.

In Europe, the introduction of the EURO has had IT organizations updating payment applications.  Since they are already updating applications and processes, it becomes a value add to move from check to electronic payment. 

This isn't true in North America -- Canada and the US aren't changing currencies.  The cost of paying by check has increased but only nomially.  And organizations that have rolled out portals that allow their customers (companies as well as individuals) to pay online mostly benefit small organizations. 

@SandraG: While it's impossible to find a solution to this problem via these comments, let me simply point out that there's a lesson to be learned from the drivers of the migration from checks to epayments in Europe. Having personally experienced the transition from DM to Euro in Germany, I can say that B2B ePayments were the norm in Europe well before the launch of Euro. The drivers lie not in the cost of checks versus epayments - as a matter of fact, the migration happened despite checks being free and epayments attracting fees in most parts of Europe - but in the potential of epayments to deliver efficiency gains in the end-to-end payments process.