Oddly, given the context of this thread, the UK is an exception. Or at least it was until a few years ago (I left in 2019). They have Faster Payments, but they also still use (used?) cheques more often than any other non-US country I've interacted with. For example, a number of UK universities still do (or until recently did?) expense reimbursements in the form of paper cheques, when reimbursing people not employed by the institution. One university even mailed a paper cheque, made out in British pounds and drawn on a UK bank, to our French invited speaker! The speaker found it inconvenient/expensive to have to deal with that, but their bank was fortunately able to figure out how to deposit it.

You probably have a very small illegal population, here in the US, if you don’t wanna hand someone a ton of cash but wanna pay them for something and they’re not allowed to open a bank account, a check is the easiest way to give them money. They can go to a check cashing place pay the 1-3% fee and cash the check. Otherwise you’re giving them cash or doing some complicated load to a prepaid card.

They are still in use in France from time to time. Typical use cases I have seen are security deposits, and for small non-profits to expense volunteers and getting paid without bothering with payment terminals.