Just lately I seem to have had a bit of a thing about the end of the road and have posted on that theme on both Les Lavandes and Fern's blog. Why not here as well? Might as well go for the hat trick. So here it is: the end of the road for the cheque.
It seems there is in London an organisation which calls itself the Payments Council or something very like that. I'm sure it used to be something different in my younger days when I worked in a bank, but never mind, it's the Payments Council now. This Council represents the clearing banks and other paying organisations. They announced a few months back that, as the number of cheques used to make payments was reducing sharply in favour of debit and credit cards, they planned to withdraw cheques completely in October 2018. There was, predictably, an outcry, especially from small organisations and charities who rely on donations being sent through the post by cheque. The Payments Council indicated that they would introduce an alternative means of payment before the abolition of the cheque.
As an aside, it is interesting to compare the situation in England with that in France. English supermarkets have refused to accept cheques for some time but French supermarkets have cheque-writing machines attached to the tills, as indeed do many other French shops. Over there it is a criminal offence to issue a cheque without having the funds to meet it and anybody doing so has banking facilities withdrawn. Hence shops etc are quite happy to accept cheques subject only to the drawers producing some form of identification when larger sums are involved.
But to get back to the end of the road for the cheque. I assumed that plans were in place to repeal the Bills of Exchange Act of 187-wotsit and the Cheques Act of 1951 (or was that 1952?) otherwise all we would have to do is write an instruction to our bank to pay Mr X the sum of £Y and they would have to comply. But it is now unnessecary. The Payments Council yesterday admitted that they have been unable to find a suitable replacement for the cheque so it is unlikely to be abolished just yet. It seems the end of the road is not yet in sight.
Glad to hear that. Our church has a art exhibit every year (this year it is over this weekend) and it's the one event I get involved with -- When people buy paintings it's with cash or cheque and I've been puzzling over how that will work when that form of payment was done away with. It is amazing though how many people happen by the exhibit and have to go to a bank for cash as almost no one carries a chequebook around with them anymore. In fact I've had to remind myself to slip my chequebook into my handbag in case I get tempted to buy something. Think I'll do it right now!
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