Britain bounces checks after 300 years

[John Picard]

After more than three centuries, the humble check could become a historic relic if British banks, as expected, vote to phase it out in favor of more modern payment methods.

The board of the UK Payments Council, the body for setting payment strategy in Britain, was meeting on Wednesday to discuss whether to set a date of 2018 for winding up the check clearing system. The board is largely made up of Britain's leading banks.
The use of checks has fallen drastically in the past 10 years as more consumers transfer money electronically, by direct debit or with debit and credit cards. Last year, around 3.8 million checks were written every day in Britain, compared to a peak of 10.9 million in 1990, the council said.
It costs about one pound to process every check.
"The next generation probably won't even have a checkbook," said Addy Frederick, a spokeswoman at the payments council.

Yeah, there will be a few commenting here, in a condescending manner, that they "haven't written a check in years"; however, there are still instances in the US where people write checks. I pay 90% of my bills electronically and prefer that form of payment when possible. One example is my electric bill, where I refused to pay electronically when a $5 surcharge was added to the privilege. Of course, this was before the Recession when people looked down their noses at my frugality. Those same people are now wishing for the days when they could "float" a check.


One thing I wish US businesses would adopt that the Europeans have is stronger safeguards with electronic passwords and keycards.

 

[Geckothan]

I'd much rather write cheques than transfer money electronically. I dislike remembering 100s of passwords (I use different passwords on every site and I have countless accounts) and using the internet to pay for things. What's scary is, if someone manages to get into your email, they have access to most of your accounts, and if you somehow lose access to your email account (if it goes inactive/dormant, as is the case with most free email services, if you change ISPs and lose your ISP assigned address, if it gets hacked and can't be recovered or something terrible happens to you financially and you lose your internet access and don't want to risk using someone else's connection for perfectly valid security reasons), you're in trouble.

On the other hand, to write a cheque all you need is a bank account, a chequebook and the name of the person/organisation who you're paying. Though they're easy to forge and not very secure, it's pretty difficult to hijack someone's identity and ruin their life if it gets stolen, whereas on the internet all it takes is for one bad guy to steal a password to ruin someone's life (if they're dumb enough to use the internet for personal matters and RELY on it to do their finances).

Credit/debit cards aren't so bad, but unlike a cheque, if it gets stolen, you're in for a whole world of trouble if you don't cancel it straight away.

 

[Mr Light]

I've always paid my bills with checks. I work in a bank and believe me there's still a shitload of checks out there... in America anyway. Old people refuse to use debit cards they don't trust them... believe me because I have to try to sell it to them!

 

[Lindley]

Just about the only time I bother writing a check is when there's some advantage in doing so. For instance, my flight school gives a 10% bonus on their card when you fill it up with a $1000 balance using a check. That's a free hour of flight time.

 

[Captain Ice]

While I pay a lot of my bills online, I still prefer checks for some things, like rent/mortgage payments.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

I'd much rather write cheques than transfer money electronically. I dislike remembering 100s of passwords (I use different passwords on every site and I have countless accounts) and using the internet to pay for things. What's scary is, if someone manages to get into your email, they have access to most of your accounts, and if you somehow lose access to your email account (if it goes inactive/dormant, as is the case with most free email services, if you change ISPs and lose your ISP assigned address, if it gets hacked and can't be recovered or something terrible happens to you financially and you lose your internet access and don't want to risk using someone else's connection for perfectly valid security reasons), you're in trouble.

On the other hand, to write a cheque all you need is a bank account, a chequebook and the name of the person/organisation who you're paying. Though they're easy to forge and not very secure, it's pretty difficult to hijack someone's identity and ruin their life if it gets stolen, whereas on the internet all it takes is for one bad guy to steal a password to ruin someone's life (if they're dumb enough to use the internet for personal matters and RELY on it to do their finances).

Credit/debit cards aren't so bad, but unlike a cheque, if it gets stolen, you're in for a whole world of trouble if you don't cancel it straight away.

This pretty much sums it up for me. I'm much more comfortable using chequebooks than any of the alternatives.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I use my debit card for as many things as possible.

If it's for a bill and I can't use the card, I get a money order.

If it's a normal purchase and they don't take the card, I get cash.

I don't even have any checks anymore. So few places take them now it's just kinda pointless to me.

 

[Braxton]

With businesses starting to charge a special service fee to pay over the via or online with a credit/debit card, I'm opting to pay via check. If you have a monthly bill that you pay online and are charged $5 every time, that's $60 a year in service fees that could be used buy something else. That is just for one bill, what if you have three or four that are like this? You could potentially be paying $240 in service fees doing this. I don't see checks going away, especially with the recession having changed peoples level of frugality. In a time when every dollar counts, why waste it on service fees?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I never use checks. The sooner the world gets rid of them, the better, IMHO.

 

[Lindley]

With businesses starting to charge a special service fee to pay over the via or online with a credit/debit card, I'm opting to pay via check. If you have a monthly bill that you pay online and are charged $5 every time, that's $60 a year in service fees that could be used buy something else. That is just for one bill, what if you have three or four that are like this? You could potentially be paying $240 in service fees doing this. I don't see checks going away, especially with the recession having changed peoples level of frugality. In a time when every dollar counts, why waste it on service fees?

Some sites accept e-checks. I know Amazon does.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

With businesses starting to charge a special service fee to pay over the via or online with a credit/debit card, I'm opting to pay via check. If you have a monthly bill that you pay online and are charged $5 every time, that's $60 a year in service fees that could be used buy something else. That is just for one bill, what if you have three or four that are like this? You could potentially be paying $240 in service fees doing this. I don't see checks going away, especially with the recession having changed peoples level of frugality. In a time when every dollar counts, why waste it on service fees?

I only have one bill that charges me a service fee for paying online. I can see how it might be a pain if you have several bills that all do it, though.

But a couple of them give me discounts for going paperless, so I guess it evens out.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

What's scary is, if someone manages to get into your email, they have access to most of your accounts, and if you somehow lose access to your email account (if it goes inactive/dormant, as is the case with most free email services, if you change ISPs and lose your ISP assigned address, if it gets hacked and can't be recovered or something terrible happens to you financially and you lose your internet access and don't want to risk using someone else's connection for perfectly valid security reasons), you're in trouble.

What does email have to do with this? Just write down your passwords on a piece of paper and keep it in a secure location.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

What's scary is, if someone manages to get into your email, they have access to most of your accounts, and if you somehow lose access to your email account (if it goes inactive/dormant, as is the case with most free email services, if you change ISPs and lose your ISP assigned address, if it gets hacked and can't be recovered or something terrible happens to you financially and you lose your internet access and don't want to risk using someone else's connection for perfectly valid security reasons), you're in trouble.

What does email have to do with this? Just write down your passwords on a piece of paper and keep it in a secure location.

And every online bill pay thing I use requires a separate login once you click the link from the email. And I don't use the same password for my email that I use for those accounts!

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

once you click the link from the email.

The what?

In every online billpay site I've used, you just choose a username and password. Email isn't involved (although some sites just use your email address as the username).

 

[Squiggy]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091216/lf_nm_life/us_britain_chequesOne example is my electric bill, where I refused to pay electronically when a $5 surcharge was added to the privilege.

One would assume that surcharge would expire if there was no other option.

 

[Geckothan]

What does email have to do with this? Just write down your passwords on a piece of paper and keep it in a secure location.

Because if somebody gets into your email account (not difficult to pull off, especially with all the unsecured wireless connections around), the chances are they can hijack other accounts, including ones you use to pay bills. If you use the email account for personal messages, they can easily guess their way through secret questions (unless you're smart and treat them like extra passwords).

 

[John Clark]

For myself, I just write one a year. As part of my job I tend to write a few more.

 

[John Picard]

What's scary is, if someone manages to get into your email, they have access to most of your accounts, and if you somehow lose access to your email account (if it goes inactive/dormant, as is the case with most free email services, if you change ISPs and lose your ISP assigned address, if it gets hacked and can't be recovered or something terrible happens to you financially and you lose your internet access and don't want to risk using someone else's connection for perfectly valid security reasons), you're in trouble.

What does email have to do with this? Just write down your passwords on a piece of paper and keep it in a secure location.

And every online bill pay thing I use requires a separate login once you click the link from the email. And I don't use the same password for my email that I use for those accounts!

This is one aspect of e-commerce I HATE in the US where Europe is light years ahead of us. Well, US businesses HATE spending money to secure data transactions, but anway, here are some examples:
Login ID and password variations: Must have at least one capital letter; no numbers; must have at least one special character; must have at least one number; no shorter than 6 characters; must be at least 8 characters in length; no underscores.......

As was stated earlier, if there's a surcharge then I don't use electronic payment. My local electric company charged $5 for electronic payments, which for me is $60/year, or one month of electric service. Once the surcharge went away I was more than happy to use electronic payment. My mortgage, cell phone, and electric bill are all paid electronically. I don't like auto debits from an account, like my auto insurance can do, because there's a chance that some faulty code gets implemented and *BAM* multiple debits take affect and are a headache to correct.

Overall, I write two or three checks per month, but would prefer not to do so.

 

[Iasius]

I have never written a check myself. Last time I've so much as just seen one was in 1999 (in the USA).

 

[Jadzia]

I'd much rather write cheques than transfer money electronically.

Me too. I'm strongly opposed to this plan.