Cheques to be withdrawn after 350 years

Here in the United Kingdom you still see a lot of people writing cheques but back in Australia the old chequebook started becoming a thing of the past when EFTPOS was introduced in the 1990′s. You didn’t have to carry a chequebook around because you had a card to use at places like the checkout in the supermarket and your card could be linked to your cheque account if you had one – even if buying something like batteries it was more handy because there was no minimum purchase introduced until later on.

This became so popular that cheques quickly became almost obsolete and in fact if you wanted to write a cheque in a store staff would treat you with suspicion for not opting to use your card instead. Now cheques are on their way out here in the UK as well as cheques are to be abolished under controversial plans being drawn up by bankers. They are widely expected to vote next month for the chequebook to be consigned to history.

Cheques, which were first used in Britain 350 years ago, are also an expensive form of payment for banks. They cost around £1 each to process, which is four times as much as electronic payments. Those who always complained about the time it took for a bank to ‘clear’ a cheque will question why it ever took so long – especially as you can see that the funds disappear from your account instantly the cheque is presented but the recipient still has to wait days to receive them. It was always a money-making thing to me.

The most likely date for cheques to be phased out in the UK is 2018. A growing number of stores including John Lewis and Tesco have stopped accepting cheques, stores claim they are the most insecure form of payment and that abolishing them cuts queues at checkouts. Sure, it is easy to sign a slip of paper for a trolley load of goods and the most that will happen is you will get charged a fee – unlike in France where the penalities are much harsher for passing a dud cheque – and we have all been stood impatiently behind an elderly person in a queue as they search painstakingly for ‘their pen’, then their cheque-book…bring on 2018.

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