Bank of America’s (BofA) CEO, Brian Moynihan, told Reuters it may take 10 to 15 years before US banks see the benefit of investing in mobile payments and other tech.

Moynihan foresees banks still carrying the cost of processing paper-based cheques and carrying physical dollars and cents for that period of time, according to an interview.

“Even though mobile wallets, credit cards and debit cards all grow, you still have a lot of cash and a lot of other things, so it will take time for customers to change,” he said in an interview.

Along with other US banks, BofA backs a P2P payment service called Zelle. Its solo efforts in recent years include investing in a card reader for small traders to process payments at the point of sale using a smartphone or tablet, and a service that enables firms to send payments to their customers by using only a mobile number or email — rather than bank account details — to identify them.

The bank billed the latter service as offering cost savings of 75 per cent over sending out physical cheques.