In this episode of Check Mate, Mark Greenspan breaks down Positive Pay, one of the most effective tools businesses can use to prevent check fraud. While it may not be flashy, Positive Pay quietly shifts liability, stops fraudulent checks before they clear, and can even save companies money on stop-payment fees.

Mark explains how standard Positive Pay works, how Payee Positive Pay adds an extra layer of protection, and why formatting precision matters more than most businesses realize. If your company issues checks, this is essential listening.

In today’s episode, Mark takes us back to a moment in financial history that most people never realized shaped the modern payments world. Before mobile banking, before instant transfers, before digital checks, our entire U.S. banking system relied on one fragile assumption:

Checks had to move as paper.

Mark breaks down how that system worked, why it was so vulnerable, and the pivotal moments that pushed the industry into the digital era. From the ripple effects of 9/11 to the passage of Check 21 to the rise of mobile deposit, this episode maps out the major milestones that ultimately made eChecks possible.

In this episode of The Pen, host Mark Greenspan breaks down why more and more businesses are ditching paper checks and adopting eChecks — fully digital checks that move through the banking system just like traditional ones, but without the paper, postage, or delay.

In this episode, Mark explains how the typical paper-check workflow creates unnecessary cost, friction, and risk for businesses and their vendors. He walks through how eChecks work, why banks accept them, and the key benefits that matter most to business owners.