this, changes were implemented so that the maximum time after a cheque was deposited that it could be dishonoured was six days, what was known as the "certainty of fate" principle. An advantage to the drawer of using cheques instead of debit card transactions, is that they know the drawer's bank will not release the money until several days later. Paying with a cheque and making a deposit before it clears the drawer's bank is called "kiting" or "floating" and is generally illegal in the US, but rarely enforced unless the drawer uses multiple chequing accounts with multiple institutions to increase the delay or to steal the funds. Declining use Cheque usage has been declining for some years, both for point of sale transactions (for which credit cards, debit cards or mobile payment apps are increasingly preferred) and for third party payments (for example, bill payments), where the decline has been accelerated by the emergence of telephone banking, online banking, and mobile banking. Being paper-based, cheques are costly for banks to process in comparison to electronic payments, so banks in many countries now discourage the use of cheques, either by charging for cheques or by making the alternatives more attractive to customers. In particular the handling of money transfer requires more effort and is time-consuming. The cheque has to be handed over in person or sent through mail. The rise of automated teller machines (ATMs) means that small amounts of cash are often easily accessible, so that it is sometimes unnecessary to write a cheque for such amounts instead. Alternatives to cheques Payment systems other than cheques include: Cash Debit card payments Credit card payments Direct debit (initiated by payee) Direct credit (initiated by payer), ACH in US, giro in Europe, Direct Entry in Australia Wire transfer (local and international) via banks and credit unions or else via major private vendors such as Western Union and MoneyGram Electronic bill payments using Internet banking Online payment services, e.g. WeChat Pay, Alipay, PayPal, Venmo, Unified Payments Interface, PhonePe, Paytm and Worldpay Money orders Variations on regular cheques In addition to regular cheques, a number of variations were developed to address specific needs or address issues when using a regular cheque. Cashier's cheques and bank drafts Cashier's cheques and banker's drafts, also known as bank cheques, banker's cheques or treasurer's cheques, are cheques issued against the funds of a financial institution rather than