Hurrah For Cheques
Scarlett MccGwire congratulates the Treasury Select Committee for defending the humble cheque.
25 Aug 2011, 10:30
Should we abolish cheques?
When I last visited her, she announced: ‘I have decided when I am going to die – when they abolish cheques. I just don’t know how I’ll manage.’
The news that the 2018 deadline for cheques had been removed had only made her more certain that they would become harder to use. While my father happily taps away on the computer, emailing and googling with the best, she has decided against being a silver surfer. Electronic banking is not for her. She does not live in a bygone age, she has a credit card and uses an ATM, but in her small seaside town many transactions are by cheque. Not just because it is dominated by the elderly, but because that is how the small businesses there like it.
So, well done the Commons Treasury Select Committee, who chastised the Payments Council for announcing a withdrawal of cheques. And, equally important, urged it to reconsider its move to axe the cheque guarantee card.
Quite rightly Committee Chair Andrew Tyrie says: ‘The incentive for the industry to get rid of cheques has not gone away. The Payments Council is an industry dominated body with no effective accountability. It should not have unfettered powers to take decisions on the future of cheques, or other issues that are of vital importance to millions of people.’
It is another example of the shocking arrogance of the banks that they thought the money saved was worth yet more outrage against them.
Yet, removing the cheque guarantee card is a subtle way of losing the cheque itself. My newsagent is quite happy to accept my non-guaranteed cheque for newspaper delivery – he knows where I live. However, few financial transactions are that personal. No guarantee cards mean fewer cheques passed and they could disappear by stealth.
The Post Office is following the banks hard, with signs up saying which products cannot be paid for by a cheque with a guarantee card. Others will follow.
The banks owe us a few favours – quite a few. They talk about customer satisfaction but do little about it. Give us back our cheque guarantee cards. Give us a choice.
The author
Scarlett MccGwire
Scarlett MccGwire is a media trainer and communications consultant.
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Comments (1)
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The good news is that the marketplace will decide this one. Most supermarkets and petrol stations don't take cheques because they gum up the system, and I suspect it won't be long before medium and small businesses follow suit. That way we don't have to wait in line whilst people indulge themselves in cheque writing. And like most things in life, age is no impediment to change, and those people fall back on it as an excuse are only fooling themselves.
26/08/2011 09:59