Springfield, IL (CAPITOL CITY NOW) – We are parting ways with the penny. Can the paper check be next?

“I don’t know that they are necessarily going the way the penny,” says Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza, “but I definitely think that we are seeing less and less of them every day.”

For household needs, Mendoza (pictured, with the check-inserting machine in her office’s mailroom) says writing a check feels like something from the 70’s or 80’s or “as my teenager would say, the 1900’s.”

The state’s checkwriter-in-chief says her office makes about 15 million payments a year, and only 80 percent of those are of the electronic variety. By comparison, Mendoza says only one percent of Social Security recipients are paid via paper check.

The reason many give for preferring paper payments is that they are “unbanked;” that is, they have no bank account. Mendoza says her office’s Bank on Illinois program can connect people with financial institutions which can give them an account free of fees.

Mendoza suggests a New Year’s resolution: “Please sign up for EFT.”