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Checks might look like simple pieces of paper but they have a big and fascinating history behind them. Let's take a look at where check processing started and where it is now.

Persian 'Sakks'
According to Mental Floss, the concept behind the check began around the first century when Persian traders presented business associates with written promises to pay for goods once they were delivered to them. These written promises were called "sakks" or "chaks" according to the London Times and it's where we get our modern work "checks."

The written promises proved extremely handy: it was a way to travel without having to carry money and it allowed a written promise to pay made in one location to be cashed in a different one.

Amsterdam traders
Checks moved into widespread usage during the 1500s when Holland, and in particular Amsterdam, became an international trading center. To make dealing with fellow merchants easier, traders began to deposit their cash in Dutch banks to have easier access (rather than leave it at home). With this arrangement, they could pay their debts directly by providing their creditors with a written notice that could be cashed immediately at banks in the city.

This practice spread to other parts of the world, including England and eventually the U.S. during the 16th and 17th centuries. But there were still those who doubted the concept who still had misgivings about giving their goods or services to a stranger in exchange for a mere piece of paper.

Widespread usage
Checks were reportedly first used in the U.S. in the 1680s when businessmen in Boston, short on funds, mortgaged their land and other holdings and wrote checks against the money. Later, in England in the 1760s, a banker named Lawrence Childs is believed to have created the first printed checks. In fact, the usage of the actual word "check" is thought to have begun around this same time when numbers were added to the paper to allow accountants to "check" them against their records.

The wider usage created another problem, that of one bank collecting money due from another bank. Banks delivered checks to be cashed back and forth via messenger, which meant checks and money moving back and forth across the city in constant motion. But according to a banking folk tale, two bank messengers happen to cross paths in a coffee shop and discovered they had checks bound for each other's banks. They decided to simply exchange their bags and the idea of a central check clearinghouse was born.

Still in use
Checks are still a common form of payment for amounts large and small. In fact, the largest amount ever paid by check is $9 billion, according to Celebrity Net Worth. It was written in 2008 by Japan-based investment bank Mitsubishi UFJ to pay for 21 percent ownership in then-struggling Morgan Stanley. The deal was struck on a holiday weekend and because Morgan Stanley required the money as soon as possible, it was determined that a check was the fastest way to deliver it.

Today, billions of checks are written each year (approximately 17 billion were written in 2016, according to the Federal Reserve Bank). And as with the first checks, concerns over security and accuracy still exist. A fast check scanner and processing device such as the Cummins Allison JetScan iFX i100 can process checks at 400 per minute while simultaneously recording a high-resolution, double-sided check image. The JetScan can capture information and export it into check managing software for accurate input. Check images and information can be archived for easy retrieval, making it the fastest check processing device in the industry.