Do any shops accept Cheques ?

Mikeyorks

ShelfStacker wrote: »

The only reason banks really issue them any more is to placate either people who don't know any better or people who refuse to pay with anything else

There are 4 Million cheques go through Clearing every working day. And the average value is a shade under £970.

That's still a lot of placating?

Valli

And businesses use them to settle accounts.

and banks used them when they have messed up and have to refund payments:D

ShelfStacker_3

Mikeyorks wrote: »

There are 4 Million cheques go through Clearing every working day. And the average value is a shade under £970.

That's still a lot of placating?

There's still a lot of people very set in their ways, or who don't want to change, or who simply can't be bothered changing.

ShelfStacker_3

Valli wrote: »

Have to say though if you are sending any money into school (ie dinner money payments, uniform orders, trip payments) cheques are safest way to pay. My kids, at secondary, have a dinner card they can put credit on in a machine - they put money/card in or the cards can be topped up by cheques) I always send cheques. They then don't carry cash, I know they have enough to pay for their meals and if they lose the cheque it's no good to anyone else.
Much easier for the schools too - they know exactly who has sent the money in (because I write THAT on the back of the cheques.)
So, although I bank on line and use debit cards happily I would not be without my cheques.
But I miss the good old days - cos you could write a cheque before payday - can't do THAT with a debit card!

What you described could easily be done with FPS or BACS. And strictly speaking, spending money in advance of an expected credit is the sort of thing overdrafts are meant for.

agsnu

ShelfStacker wrote: »

There's still a lot of people very set in their ways, or who don't want to change, or who simply can't be bothered changing.

Well, the high average transaction value seems to indicate that they're not being used for point of sale or bill payments very much any more.

agsnu

ShelfStacker wrote: »

What you described could easily be done with FPS or BACS.

FPS and BACS have a pretty high implementation cost for such a low volume of payments, though. And not to mention the inconvenience for parents in having to set up the payment details on their online banking. Arguably would be better through a web-based system and taking payments from debit cards, although that would in turn incur higher processing costs for the school.

Extant

agsnu wrote: »

Well, the high average transaction value seems to indicate that they're not being used for point of sale or bill payments very much any more.

But is it the mean or the median? Far more useful to gather the median. Or better yet remove business usage and evaluate personal spending only.

Mikeyorks

ShelfStacker wrote: »

There's still a lot of people very set in their ways, or who don't want to change, or who simply can't be bothered changing.

No ..... there's still a lot of businesses who find it practical, for reasons of organisation / security / cashflow, to pay by cheque. That's where the high average value comes from.

Extant

agsnu wrote: »

FPS and BACS have a pretty high implementation cost for such a low volume of payments, though. And not to mention the inconvenience for parents in having to set up the payment details on their online banking. Arguably would be better through a web-based system and taking payments from debit cards, although that would in turn incur higher processing costs for the school.

The inconvenience of setting up payment details? That's comparable to the inconvenience of holding a fraud-prone paper booklet and having to write it out, possibly post it, etc.

More to the point, this so called inconvenience is not an inherent problem of the electronic payment method, more of how good a bank's internet banking facility is. It takes me about 30 seconds to send a payment from my account and I can rest assured it's pretty much there instantly. "Inconvenience" is a terrible excuse in this case, especially considering you can save payment details.

And the cost of implementing such a system? What costs are you imagining? Because the back bone of the system is cheaper than cheque clearing, and I would LOVE to see which business tariff charges more for automatic credits than cheques...

Inactive

ShelfStacker wrote: »

There's still a lot of people very set in their ways, or who don't want to change, or who simply can't be bothered changing.

Why should they, if they are comfortable with using cheques?