Banks to vote on abolishing payment by cheque by 2018
BANKS are drawing up plans to abolish cheques and instead demand payment by plastic or electronic transfer.
If the proposals are approved, cheques could disappear from as early as 2018.
The Payments Council, a panel drawn from the major banks, will vote on December 16 on whether to stop accepting the 300-year-old method of payment.
The move would save the banks hundreds of millions of pounds as cheques cost as much as £1 to process. This is four times as much as electronic payments.
But consumers groups and small businesses have attacked the plans and said cheques remain vital for many elderly, vulnerable and disabled people.
Small traders are concerned about the expense of having to install a card-processing machine.
Sandra Quinn, from the Payments Council, said cheques would not be abolished before suitable alternative measures were put in place.
“There are lots of groups that would be disadvantaged by this if it were to happen tomorrow, “ she said. “Before it could happen there would need to be alternatives in place.”
The number of cheques written each day has fallen by two-thirds in the past 20 years to 3.8m a day.