The check may not be dead, but the envelope is increasingly optional. Payments and data company Deluxe on Tuesday (Aug. 5) said it has purchased CheckMatch, a service that digitizes the delivery of paper checks, from Kinexys by JPMorgan, folding the platform into the Deluxe Payment Network (DPN). The deal gives Minneapolis‑based Deluxe direct digital connections to more than half of the nation’s top 10 lockbox operators and several large disbursement partners, according to the companies.
Deluxe CEO Barry McCarthy told PYMNTS’ Karen Webster the aim is simple: “One network for the entire system.”
Lockboxes are bank‑managed P.O. boxes that receive and process checks. They may feel like relics in an era of instant payments. Yet a significant amount of B2B payments still travel by paper, creating float, fraud risk and data‑entry headaches. Deluxe and JPMorgan say combining their networks lets payors deliver those checks electronically instead of printing, stuffing and mailing envelopes. It’s a change that reduces postage, handling, and, increasingly, check‑washing scams that have proliferated in the U.S. mail.
Lockboxes survive because they solve potentially complicated ad‑hoc transactions.
“People need to make one‑off payments or payments that require significant information in order to be settled, and often the most streamlined way is still a paper check with a reconciliation statement,” McCarthy said. The new network lets the payer send that same package digitally, “taking out the cost and making it less friction‑filled, faster and lower cost.”
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JPMorgan’s explainer puts numbers around the benefits: accelerating cash flow by cutting “mail float,” reducing manual data entry and lowering fraud risk through bank‑grade security. High‑value wholesale checks like insurance claim payouts, supplier rebates and medical remittances are especially suited to the model. For Deluxe, those mechanics dovetail with its century‑old franchise in check printing and its newer push into B2B payments software. DPN already linked thousands of physical lockboxes; CheckMatch roughly doubles the reach and adds JPMorgan’s corporate clients to the mix.
Moving To Pixels
McCarthy framed the acquisition as a milestone in the move from paper to pixels.
“By bringing together the strengths of CheckMatch and DPN, we are building the largest purpose‑built digital lockbox network in the market,” he told Webster. “And we’re delivering value through scale, security and simplicity.”
All of which is music to the ears of CFOs and treasurers. But their chief concern is working‑capital timing. Replacing stamped envelopes with same‑day electronic files “makes it much easier to manage your outbound cash flow,” McCarthy said. Treasurers can hold cash longer, know the exact settlement date and reconcile payments automatically because remittance data travels with the digital instrument.
“Anything that can be distributed electronically, we distribute electronically. Anything that’s left drops to print and mail,” he added.
The Art of the Deal
Why did Deluxe buy? Why did JPM sell? Deluxe already ran a parallel network; JPMorgan’s platform overlapped. The two sides had talked about interoperability but decided scale mattered more than symmetry. “It became pretty obvious that this should come together to be one network, not two,” McCarthy said.
Once the technology merge is finished, which is expected by mid‑2026, the unified rail will connect five of the 10 largest U.S. lockbox processors, multiple bill‑pay hubs, accounts payable (AP) automation platforms and a major medical‑payments provider. Each additional node increases network value, allowing any payor to reach any participating lockbox with a single implementation. Deluxe says postage, envelopes and check stock can disappear for “a significant majority” of transactions, while payees keep their existing lockbox workflows.
Where will the demand come from? Large disbursers like insurance carriers, utilities, healthcare networks and the banks that serve them will be “immediate beneficiaries,” McCarthy predicted. But even mid‑market firms that mail modest volumes stand to gain. “Anyone that has a payment file at the end of every period” can feed it into the network, he said.
McCarthy said Deluxe plans to bolt on services such as dispute management, exception handling and reporting dashboards. Its Receivables 360 Plus suite already unifies eight modules behind a single sign‑on. Payables will become another module, giving treasurers “more choices, more control,” McCarthy said.
The two platforms will run in parallel while Deluxe ports JPMorgan’s technology. Aside from a possible URL change, “customers are not going to notice any difference,” McCarthy said, adding that eliminating the “two‑network question” could actually speed adoption.
