It’s been a long time since I wrote an actual check to make a car payment or pay my mortgage. These days, those payments are made through a scheduled direct withdrawal (or debit) from my personal checking account. It’s likely the same for you.
What’s more, my paycheck is also directly deposited into my checking account. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I actually deposited a physical paycheck.
Those are all ACH, or automated clearing house, transfers.
According to the National Automated Clearing House Association (Nacha), in 2018 (the most recent statistics available), the ACH network volume reached nearly 23 billion payments, with a dollar amount of $51.2 trillion.1 That’s a lot of dollars that are safely transferred from one bank account to another every year via an ACH or electronic funds transfer.