Your Cheque Book Is Being Consigned To History

Filed Under Finance

How many of us reach for our cheque books when we go shopping? It used to be an almost automatic reflex, however I wouldn’t mind betting that cheque books are mostly found at the bottom of a drawer now.

And that’s the rub – not only do we not really want, as a nation, to go through the tedious and time consuming process of writing a cheque at the tillt, we are becoming increasingly less willing to lug a cheque book around with us.

Retailers don’t like them either. Have you noticed how many display big signs saying “Cheques not accepted here”?

Cheques are not disappearing entirely, but in twelve months the cheque guarantee card is meeting it’s doom as they will no longer be valid from 30 June 2011.

As very few retailers accept a cheque without a guarantee card, it won’t be long before after that date that the cheque will fade away to take its place in history alongside the £1 note (remember them?) and other now redundant coins.

Is the inevitable death of the cheque a bad thing? Probably not, as card technology is improving all the time and becoming more secure, although so is the determination of credit card and Id fraudsters.

The only concern I have, though, is that the relentless march towards a cashless society will have inherent dangers such as temptations for fraudsters and also the ability of government agencies to “follow the money” for whomever they like, whether they are innocent or guilty.