The main reason for payment by cheque is that is is better for cashflow purposes.

If you are processing many transactions and making a very low margin, often the best way to make money is to earn interest on the money you have received prior to paying it out. Take the following for example:

$10,000 worth of transactions processed per month.

Company A pays every 30 Days by EFT. They earn approx $41.66 interest for the month that that they have your money.

If they pay you by cheque and it takes you only an additional 14 days to receive the cheque in the mail and bank it then they earn an extra $20.00 approx.

This example doesn't include compound the interest either.

This is standard business practice in most large companies.

Cheers,

Allan