Cheques....

[ToraToraTora]

How long before they become a thing of the past? I use about 2 a year, no supermarkets take them, I imagine not many shops do now either.

[Gromit]

Many businesses still pay by cheque. People still pay me by cheque. I repay a loan every month, and that is the only cheque I write. My elderly mother rarely uses a cash card and cashes her pension by writing herself a cheque every week.

I think it will be many years before they are obsolete.

[Gromit]

// Today (16th December 2009) the Payments Council Board has agreed to set a target date of 31st October 2018 to close the central cheque clearing.  Cheque use is in long-term, terminal decline. //

http://www.paymentscouncil.org.uk/media_centre/press_releases/-/page/855/

Don't know if that target date still stands?

[ToraToraTora]

I don't see why not, there is no real actual need to have them.

[woofgang]

I write very few but when I do need to write one its because there would be know option except a wad of cash. its usually to pay a small business. I wouldn't mind paying cash but the cheque flow is more auditable for tax purposes and if I were a small business I would prefer not to take the risk of carrying around large amounts of cash from customer payments.
My local newsagent has many people who have papers and magazines delivered and who pay monthly, from what o can see, most of them pay by cheque.

[woofgang]

spellcheck!!!! not "Know option" "NO option!!"

[Gromit]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/8578123/Cheques-might-not-be-scrapped-after-all.html

[dzug2]

That article is way over 2 years old gromit

[ToraToraTora]

cash is not the only alternative woofgang, debit card, internet banking etc

[woofgang]

debit cards require the payee to have the kit to accept money that way. i think that internet banking will finally replace cheques (and I use it a lot) but I think its still not a thing that the majority of people use. When that date was set originally there was much discussion about what banks could offer in place of a cheque and the best they could come up with was a system of pieces of paper that the payer could complete with their bank details and the amount to be paid.....oh no, hang on.........
The other thing to point out is that just because you and I don't use many cheques, that is not to say that other people don't use them. My sister still pays all her household bills by cheque.

[pixie373]

All our clients pay us by cheque. They are all over 80 and none of them have internet banking.

[mikey4444]

I needed one last week, to pay for a holiday but couldn't find my chequebook, as it had been at least 2 years before I last used a cheque ! So I had to get a counter cheque from the Bank itself.

[Gromit]

// Charities, small business and campaigners have been outraged at plans by the Payments Council to end cheque clearing from October 2018.
However Mark Hoban, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, said that cheques could not be scrapped until “a suitable alternative is found”. //

[rockyracoon]

I still use a lot of chqs, the school bus fees, Greenthumb who do the lawn, some school stuff, plate contributions at church. I probably go through a book every 9-12 months.

[modeller]

ToraToraTora
//cash is not the only alternative woofgang, debit card, internet banking etc //
None of those are any good if you just want to give money to say friends, neighbours, relatives, market traders , doorstop traders , mobile grocers etc. There are also plenty of small shops who don't have the facilities to accept cards. One reason for that is it costs them money .

[ToraToraTora]

you put a cheque on the plate in church?! LMAO!

[youngmafbog]

It also cost them money to bank a cheque usually, it certainly does on my business account.

Oddly I have had three cheques of late, once from a buildo (they refused to pay direct into an account that was not theirs) once from direct line for a dog insurance claim and one from my mum. I find them a pain and they usually sit on the mantlepiece for a couple of months before I can find time to go to the bank.

It's all very well to say cheque clearing has to continue but the machines that do it are currently very old and creaking, so is the code that runs it (some source is lost). This may well be the driver that kills it.

[Old_Geezer]

The banks take them. Individuals do. There is no sensible replacement. Hopefully the fools won't be able to get rid of them simply because they don't want to be bothered providing service until after I'm long gone.

That said they are already trying to provide no service at the branch. ONE person on over lunch yesterday, dealing with folk with issues that took forever. And when asked in one person on over lunch was now official policy I was told be the cashier that she didn't normally work there. i.e. they had NO regular person from that branch on at all.

[Old_Geezer]

Yeah right. Because debit card and Internet banking allows me to leave with the paperwork showing what transactions occurred and not have to rely on electronic figures being right and/or unavailable. This ridiculous troll question is regularly popping up. The reality doesn't ever change. Cheques are a major part of the service. The banks are failing in their duty not to want to provide that. But as is common in this day and age, duty is a dirty word, profit the only goal.

[grasscarp]

In the days when you were often asked to write your name and address on the back of the cheque there was a funny story. Tower Bridge has a grace and favour appartment for a retired Navy Commander. At that time there was a certain Commander Rabbit living there. His wife wrote a cheque in a shop and was asked for name and address on the back. She wrote Mrs Rabbit, Tower Bridge and was asked to stop messing about!

[emmie]

i use cheques to pay the electricity bill, i refuse absolutely to have direct debit