Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length.

[The long Build]

I'm Curious to see what you think

There is talk that cheques may be abolished by 2018    In this era of Electronic Banking Would you be bothered about not having the facility ?

More and more business's each year are no longer accepting them I think they should get rid now.

"Cheque usage has fallen from a peak of 10.9 million a day in 1990 to just 3.8 million last year, according to the council, and could decline to 1.6 million by 2018 on current trends"
http://latestnews.virginmedia.com/news/money/2009/12/16/cheques_face_d_day_within_a_decade

So what are your thoughts.
Larry

[dodgy geezer]

There is talk that cheques may be abolished by 2018...

I am always deeply depressed by news items which begin with 'There is talk...'.

I means that the journalist wants to float a rumour which has no concrete backing, and he can't be bothered to do any research to obtain any facts.

Or it may mean that a politician wants to test a controversial idea, without having the guts to be connected to it in any way.

In both cases it means that a half-baked idea is presented for our consideration without any of the hard thinking which used to accompany such proposals having been done. And if a few influential people give it the nod, it could be law by Christmas.

Almost all legislation and Government policy is now developed in this way. I would like to start a Campaign for Real Thinking, which would try to bring us back to the days when people thought deeply and produced rounded ideas and proposals which were balanced and considered, rather than wasting our time and our brains with the latest soundbites. Sometime around 1650, with Hobbes, Locke, and Hume would suit me nicely...

[The long Build]

Is it just a rumour..
I'm not too sure what power , if any, The Payment Council have,  but apparently they have voted, Following wide consultation to abolish the chq Guarantee
the decision is taken unanimously by the Payments Council’s Board
-Earliest date for Cheque Guarantee Card Scheme withdrawal is mid-2011

Would this not make receiving payment by chq a very unsafe method of payment ?.

[Colin Bishop]

More than just a rumour: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8415972.stm

However, there would need to be a satisfactory alternative. OK, most firms these days can accept card payments or could sign up to one of the payment processing agenciies but how would you make private payments from one individual to another? Not everyone has access to online banking, especially the older generation.

Colin

[mick]

With a cheque in my hand...I much prefer to wait in a warm friendly bank...than stand outside at the hole in the wall....while people rudely push past.....I also send my grandchildren cheques at Christmas and birthdays...saves my old legs around the shops....mick

[dougal99]

From what I've read over the last few days this is more than talk and it's the banks not politicians.

Personally I'm against the idea. As it stands club members can send me cheques for membership and I can use cheques to pay club debts. If this proposal comes to fruition I would have to give all club members the club account details so they could transfer the money electronically and I would have to keep track, somehow, of who had paid and who hadn't. The alternative would see me collecting cash and issuing receipts, probably at the lakeside. Not my idea of a leisurely sailing experience. I suspect every small club and organisation will be in a similar situation. I can't imagine many pre-schools or child minders having the facility to accept credit or debit cards.

As it stands club cheques need 2 signatures, so the treasurer cannot spend away as he likes. How would this cross check work if the club had a credit or debit card?

Further, and call me cynical if you like, I can see this as a way of banks actually making more money by charging for the transfer service. They already do this for transfers abroad and quite hefy fees at that.

No stick with the status quo

Doug

[malcolmfrary]

Agreed about the need for a viable working alternative that doesn't rely on the use of a network that could fail and/or cease to exist at any time.
All businesses need to be paid to continue, whatever they are.  Cheques have been part of the payment fabric for a few hundred years now.  This indicates that the system works.  Whatever comes along to replace it needs to work in any and every situation that cheques work in, no exceptions and no special conditions.
My own use of cheques has dwindled to almost zero per month, but what is left simply does not have an alternative as yet without letting the bank dive ever deeper into my pocket and that of the business that I deal with (in my case, the milkman).  
There have been times when actually having a piece of paper with information written on it to refer back to has resolved a problem.  While electronic transfers are maybe more reliable, there is no such equivalent method of sorting a problem WHEN one crops up.  Just the bland assurance that it was my fault and pay again anyway.

[Marks Model Bits]

If anyone feels the need to dispose of their "outdated cheques" feel free to sign them (so I know they are from you) and send them to me... I will recycle them for you..... 

My address is .................................

Mark..

[andyn]

"just 3.8 million last year"

Yep and good deal of them were from my nan to me, so yes I would 

[dodgy geezer]

More than just a rumour: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8415972.stm

Yup. It's the second option I specified - floating a contoversial idea without any thought. They actually say:

"The group, which sets payment strategy, wants to kick-start development of suitable alternatives and is discussing whether setting a date will give this more impetus. "If we never set a date we will never get alternatives developed," says spokeswoman Sandra Quinn."

So they actually propose removing the service in order to encourage the 'development' of suitable alternatives! Does anyone else think this is abdicating responsibility to the point of madness?

In other news, the National Grid propose removing the national pylon transmission service to kick-start the development of suitable alternative power generation ....

[malcolmfrary]

In the '80's and early '90's, it was standard business practice to make the existing company procedures all but inoperable by introducing new procedures (new=good) before they has the required infrastructure in place to make sure it could work.  It was supposed to be an "incentive" to those remaining to make the new system work in the hope of keeping their jobs, while the under-talented, pugnacious, over paid greaseball at the top could claim the credit and take the rewards and get away before the company collapsed, or the shareholders realised they had actually been conned and booted him out.

[Ghost in the shell]

a few year ago when i moved from Brittania building society to Halifax, I recieved a cheque book with my new halifax account.  this was back in 1999, by 2001 I had used 3 cheques! and have not used cheques since.  never had the need.

[RickF]

I've just organised our Austin 7 Club Christmas Dinner. At least 35 members, who all live in remote corners of Norfolk and do not attend meetings regularly, paid by cheque. When we came to pay the manager of the pub, they have a "no cheque policy" and we had to rustle up £400-odd in cash!

It's not the abolition of cheques that I would miss, but the facility to pay individuals for things without wads of cash - other than by credit card, of course. I am old enough to remember the days when not everyone had a bank account - they (and I) were paid in cash -  and receiving a cheque (or a crossed postal order - remember those?) - resulted in a search for someone willing to cash it for you. 

What is easier to use than a piece of paper and a biro, which is all a cheque is and can be understood by the most technologically-challenged. However, it needs to be handled and processed by that most expensive of machines, a human!

I can foresee that the "cheque-replacement" will be microchip-based, with a reader you rent from your bank (thus repaying the development costs) but which will only work with specific mobile phone providers. Or it will become part of the National Identity Card, thus ensuring we all have to buy and carry one. Certainly round here it will ensure that all those who now live at least 20 miles from a post office, pub or supermarket will be even more isolated.

Rick

[steamboatmodel]

Is not Money a form of cheque?
Regards,
Gerald.

[Colin Bishop]

Travellers Cheques were supposed to be a good way of taking money abroad on holiday but they are increasingly difficult to cash which means that you either have to carry large amounts of foreign dosh and hope you wan't be mugged or use local cash machines and take the not inconsiderable handing charge "hit" - and that's assuming that your bank's computer system doesn't decide that somebody has nicked your card, refuses to pay out and retains it.

Technological progress(!)

Colin

[The long Build]

Travellers Cheques were supposed to be a good way of taking money abroad on holiday but they are increasingly difficult to cash which means that you either have to carry large amounts of foreign dosh and hope you wan't be mugged or use local cash machines and take the not inconsiderable handing charge "hit" - and that's assuming that your bank's computer system doesn't decide that somebody has nicked your card, refuses to pay out and retains it.

Technological progress(!)

Colin

 When I went to France this year I took very little Monoploy Money with me and just used my card.. I got a better rate than the post office..1.13 against 1.11  not a lot I know but none the less.. he only exception was when one of the shops said would you like the charge in Sterling.. Bad Bad Mistake.


As regards paying club fees etc , We organise an outdoor swim  where you currently have the option of paying by Chq,cash or online entry using a site called Entry Central , here you set up your event or Membership , they are paid and then they transfer the money each month to your chosen account. Yes there is a fee in our case £1.00 per entry to the person paying over this year out of 95 entry's I think it was only about 14 people who paid by Cheque the rest all paid online.  I was cynical about this but when you way up the postage both ways for a large envelope its actually cheap. 

Larry

[tigertiger]

I am currently seeking information under the provisions of the Data Protection Act, from a UK police service.

They only accept cheques of postal orders.
Being in China, getting a postal order is not a possible option.

I have also bought stuff on Mayhem, from other members. Cheques are the best, and sometimes only, option for making payments between private individuals. Unless you want to start swapping bank details and paying fore electronic transfers (in some cases).

[tigertiger]

The idea that creating a problem (abolishing cheques) will lead to a solution is flawed.

As the solution may be a beggars compromise. And if only one viable (yet still potentialy flawed) solution is put forward and adopted, there is a risk of creating a monopoly situation. Look at the controversy surrounding Paypal. Seemingly safe for buyers, but many vendors have been stiffed. One of the vendors I know had his account frozen for 6 months. So efectively about £10k was taken out of his cashflow for half a year (but I am guessing that paypal were putting his money to work). That hurts. The banks would not have the power to do that. But a private company like Paypal is not regulated in the same way as the banks are.

Whatever solution they come up with must be a fully regulated bank provided service. One that will protect payer and payee.
IMHO

[john j]

I much prefer to wait in a warm friendly bank

Mick, i want to join your bank 

[FullLeatherJacket]

This has to be about banks' costs, as there is no other logical reason to pursue such a policy.
I can't find out what proportion of cheques are drawn on business accounts, however. It would seem to me to be perfectly reasonable to withdraw the facility to write business cheques as there are so many other other established ways of settling business accounts already.
Personal accounts seem to be the subject of the main debate here, so why shouldn't banks simply charge for handling cheques drawn on them, and at a rate which actually reflects the cost of doing so? It shouldn't be beyond the ability even of the FSA to come up with a figure for that.
Job jobbed.
It's about time that our establishment woke up to the fact that 'change' is not by definition always for the better, and that there's more to "customer service" than a cliche written in a company mission statement or parroted in the opening lines of a Call Centre recorded message.
FLJ

[Colin Bishop]

FLJ, yes of course it's about costs. The cheque clearing system must have substantial fixed costs and depends on volumes to keep the unit transaction rate down. Once those volumes drop away as they are doing then it becomes proportionately more costly to process each transaction and that cuts into the bonus pool.

Colin

[w3bby]

Haven't used a cheque since I moved to Sweden 19 years ago. When I first opened an account and asked about cheques they looked at me as if I was mad. Before online banking we paid bills through a Postgiro account, filled in a load af payment slips and sent them in or went to the bank.
The club of which I am Treasurer have Post and Bankgiro accounts, money can be payed in either online or in a bank, charges are incurred by the payee for using the bank, about £2.50 per transaction.
As Treasurer the Post/bankgiro system is perfect as I can go online and check all transactions, no problem keeping track of who has paid as the payee puts down their details as a reference. It also gives me the verifications needed for the bookkeeping.

[FullLeatherJacket]

The cheque clearing system must have substantial fixed costs and depends on volumes to keep the unit transaction rate down.............(et seq)

If the system is too cumbersome/expensive for its projected function then it needs changing, but the best place to start would be by ascertaining the throughput of transactions under the revised scheme. That  was the thrust of my comments. I've since found the figure is 660M personal cheques currently per year, so there's your starting point.
Sometimes the blindingly obvious really does escape me but most times I feel it's unnecessary to point it out   
'Mea culpa', old dear.
FLJ

[barriew]

Its also true that most (maybe all now) banks have outsourced cheque processing to gain that 'economy of scale'. I know at least one computer company set up such a facility for several banks. It was in the UK, but probably in India or somewhere now!

Barrie

[alan colson]

I am the organiser of the Alfold Charity Model Boat Show and basically the whole event is paid for by me sending out cheques to pay for printing, advertising, hire of portaloos to name but a few things. I also get cheques to pay for camping, bbq tickets and on the bring and buy stall. My wife is a Guide Leader, the parents pay for capitation fees, camping fees, trips out etc. nearly always by cheque. It would have to be some incredible type of payment method for both myself and my wife to be able to arrange these things without cheques.
Also, can your model boat club be run without cheques, even if it is only to pay your membership fees to the club treasurer.
Alan