MSE News: Treasury Committee to reopen cheques enquiry

Culex

NFH wrote: »

This is obvious. The company publishes its sort code and account number, and you send the payment directly to their bank account. There's no need to send around archaic pieces of paper in the post.

But they do not publish the sort code and account number!

There is also the added difficulty of a company claiming to be unable to reconcile a payment sent to a request made by email. Enclosing a cheque with a conventional letter sent by Recorded snail-mail is so much better.

Culex

Milarky wrote: »

'they want to steal our llbs, again! - everything goes black - then you wake up with a sweat - your not in an episode of Dallas, it's far worse - it's real - this is 2011 and there's only seven years left to save the beloved British cheque!

This has nowt to do with Europe and everything to do with UK banks wishing to increase their profits at the expense of their customers.

Culex

NFH wrote: »

There's a third way to instruct your bank to make a BACS/FPS payment, which is a visit to a branch. After all, by giving a cheque to someone, you are putting the onus on the payee to visit their bank, which they might not routinely do, so this just reverses that onus.

I expect this would not be much fun for someone with mobility challenges who, in less enlightened times, might have been termed a cripple.

Again, the banks' convenience seems to take precedent over that of the customers.

When cheques are abolished, the banks may introduce a postal system of securely instructing BACS/FPS payments.

There again, they might not.

The new postal instruction system you envisage must be introduced before the banks in the UK try to abolish cheques.

Culex

Paulgonnabedebtfree wrote: »

I hope no-one tries to stuff a herd of Fresians through my letterbox. Sometimes I can get as many as 10 cheques in a single delivery.

I believe that a cheque written on the side of a cow was suggested as a means of paying an income tax demand.

I do recall a case where someone paid a gas bill by means of a cheque written on a gas oven door.

opinions4u

Culex wrote: »

This has ... everything to do with UK banks wishing to increase their profits at the expense of their customers.

It depends.

Where is the extra expense for those customers? Why will it cost them more?

My guess is most people haven't drawn a cheque for years.

To hasten the demise of the cheque I'd suggest a £10 charge for a new cheque book from 2013 would persuade people to progress with the times.

(That's not to say I believe the banking system has covered all aspect of replacing cheques - but I'm sure by 2018 somewhere close to 99% of the population would be comfortable without recourse to cheques. For anything).

NFH

Culex wrote: »

But they do not publish the sort code and account number!

Then they will have to start doing so, just like organisations do in countries with more advanced banking cultures.

NFH

opinions4u wrote: »

To hasten the demise of the cheque I'd suggest a £10 charge for a new cheque book from 2013 would persuade people to progress with the times.

I agree with this in principle, but it would be unworkable. People would either hoard chequebooks in advance of a charge being introduced or write cheques on scraps of paper instead; just take the cows example as an extreme of this. You only have to look at the US banking culture (even more backward than the UK in terms of high reliance on cheques) where bank customers order cheques from independent companies instead of paying hefty fees to banks for chequebooks.

A more workable approach would be to charge £1 per cheque, representing the true cost of processing a cheque, perhaps split as 50p per cheque paid and 50p per cheque deposited, which would discourage people from asking for cheques as well as writing them.

spenderdave

One of the problems with on-line payments is that unless the payer puts the correct identification in the REF box it is very hard to establish where the payment has come from. One of the clubs I am associated with has over 700 members, around half of which pay their annual subs by internet transfer. Quite a number of those payments turn out to be impossible to identify, if for instance they just put 'John Smith' in the box.

Paulgonnabedebtfree obviously runs a far more up-market window cleaning company than the chap who comes round here and demands cash in hand when he has finished his (5 minutes max) window clean. I am not sure he would appreciate me paying by internet some time in the future, and most of these chaps most definitely prefer the folding stuff..

pinkdalek

opinions4u wrote: »

It depends.



To hasten the demise of the cheque I'd suggest a £10 charge for a new cheque book from 2013 would persuade people to progress with the times.

QUOTE]


No just charge the customer per cheque drawn on the account, afterall business accounts are charged for that service today. Bound to get some moaners no dobut but you've gotta move with the times!

opinions4u

pinkdalek wrote: »

No just charge the customer per cheque drawn on the account, afterall business accounts are charged for that service today. Bound to get some moaners no dobut but you've gotta move with the times!

Fine.

Whichever disincentivises cheque use the most!