Your check is in the ether

So, the Virginia Employment Commission no longer issues paper checks for unemployment benefits, instead making direct deposits to the unemployee's bank account or debit card. Three years ago, when I filed my weekly claim online on Sunday (the earliest day possible), my check would arrive in the mail on Wednesday. With electronic funds transfer eliminating the noble couriers of the USPS from the equation, it would be reasonable to expect that money to appear in my account a bit more expeditiously, say on Tuesday, if not Monday.

Reasonable, maybe, but wrong. My usual Sunday online claim resulted in the online augmentation of my bank balance on... Wednesday. Yup, no printing of a check, no taking it to the post office, no carrier slogging through rain and snow and glom of nit, just electrons slogging through the gloom of cyberspace -- and it still takes the same amount of time to get here. What are they doing, using slow electrons?