In a financial world digitizing at full tilt, where hairdressers are tipped on Venmo, rent is collected on Zelle and “tap to pay” options are cropping up from mass transit turnstiles to Starbucks and bodegas—conspicuously, legal payments to plaintiffs are still largely trapped in paper checks.

Strapped with postage costs and obvious limitations for the unbanked, the diminishing value of using paper checks comes especially under scrutiny in regard to class action settlement payments. Most attorneys, and even the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, agree that less of a class cashes its checks as opposed to claiming a digital payment.