In order to prevent money laundering and other fraud, financial institutions are put under strict regulatory measures. They're supposed to produce documentation regarding the source of their funds. Ripple's system allows anyone to send money to any address. If this financial institution can't control the acceptance of payments, unwanted payments can become a huge burden since the institution will be obliged to pay penalties.

Ripple account holders can set deposit authorization on their accounts. This configuration will disable the account from receiving the regular payments. Now, the account will be able to receive payments only through checks, escrows, and payment channels.

We will discuss escrows and payments channels later in this chapter. Checks in Ripple work exactly like paper checks. Any user on Ripple can create a check by specifying the amount to be transferred and the receiver's address. Money is not put on hold on the sender's account while the check is created. Hence, if the sender doesn't have enough balance in their account, the recipient can't cash the check. However, like traditional checks, the recipient can try again to cash out until the check expires. 

The recipient won't be able to cash out the check after it expires. The sender or the recipient is allowed to cancel the check. Hence, this allows institutions to completely control the acceptance of payments. The usage of checks isn't restricted to prevent money laundering but people can also use them to send deferred payments. Even issued currency can be sent through checks.