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"Cheque use in UK continues to decline"

By admin | June 24th, 2008 | General

Recent reports have shown how the use of cheques in the UK is continuing to decline, further fuelled by a number of leading retailers now placing a ban on the use of cheques, branding them time consuming and costly to process given the reduced popularity of cheques as a method of payment. Paying by cheque was once all the rage in the UK, and in 1990 the use of cheques peaked, with millions of cheques being written on a daily basis. For many people cheque were the ideal way to pay for everything from the grocery shop and petrol to paying utility bills.

However, since this time the age of plastic has revolutionised cashless transactions, and the younger generation of today has been brought up on plastic payments and cash rather than cheques. Major retailers and companies have started to turn cheques away because of the time and cost involved, and companies such as utility firms have started to penalise those paying by cheque by charging them additional fees for not paying by direct debit. All of these factors have added to the decline of the cheque in the UK.

Last year saw the use of cheques decline even further, with a 9% drop in the number of cheques being issued. Amongst the retailers that have already stopped accepting cheques are Boots, Asda, Morrisons, and Shell. Tesco and Marks & Spencer are to ban cheques within the coming week, so fewer and fewer customers will be able to use cheques even when they want to. One industry official from APACS stated: ‘There is a generation of people who have grown up without having a cheque book around. We have moved away from cheques and cash and are increasingly turning to plastic, particularly our debit cards.’

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Tags: cheque, direct debit

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