I worked in a bank for 20 years before moving to the accounting profession 9 years ago. My first job as supervisor was in the Account Services department where I supervised several elderly women who filed checks and compared signatures as they did. They did this every morning when the checks came back from data processing. Sometime in the 1990's as consolidation and takeovers happened, this signature comparison practice fell by the wayside for most banks. The MICR encoded account numbers allowed checks to be sorted by machines and the little old ladies retired (or were laid off).

The banks decided it wasn't cost-efficient to look at checks anymore and shifted the responsibility for catching forgeries to the customer. Of course it wasn't announced to the customer, and lots of folks still think the bank carefully examines each and every signature on a check. This is why it's a good idea when your bank statement comes in the mail to rip into it and review the cancelled checks immediately, even if you're going to put off reconciling your checkbook for months (like I do )