More than half of consumer loans paid by check, cash

Most U.S. consumer loan payments are still not electronic, while lenders focus on security and fraud mitigation, according to research commissioned by BillingTree.

Key observations and findings from the survey report include:

• Paper checks represent 41% of all U.S. loan payments. When combined with cash payments (11%), over half of all loans are paid nonelectronically by consumers.

• Fraud mitigation, data security, and compliance were cited as the factors most critical to business growth by lenders.

• Email is the primary communication method deployed by lenders for post loan communications, followed closely by paper mail.

“A growing awareness is reflected in the responses from our recent survey of lending institutions,” says Dave Yohe, head of marketing at BillingTree, “where compliance and security ranked as top-of-mind concerns for industry professionals, with the use of payment technology continuing to close the gap on more traditional payment channels.”