Cheques To Be Paid In Via Smartphone

A_Flock_Of_Sheep

JuicyJesus wrote: »

In the same sense as everyone travelling by horse and cart kept people who made carts employed.

I don't know why you are so anti-cheques anyway. If you don't like them don't use them. No skin of your nose really is it i someone likes to use them and you don't.

I don't smoke but don't moan about others that do. It's their choice.

And if you think for a second banks would pass any savings onto you for not using cheques I think you'd be waiting a long time.

A_Flock_Of_Sheep

chambta wrote: »

How do they?

The person behind the bank window who takes it off you for a start or empties the deposit machine.

I still get my Premium Bond prizes by cheque.

Do you still get Giros off the dole for the post office?

noh

A_Flock_Of_Sheep wrote: »

The person behind the bank window who takes it off you for a start or empties the deposit machine.

I still get my Premium Bond prizes by cheque.

Do you still get Giros off the dole for the post office?

You can get Premium Bond prizes via BACs. More convenient, secure and faster than a cheque.
http://www.nsandi.com/savings-premium-bonds-prizes-direct-your-bank-account

Social security payments are made by BACs
https://www.gov.uk/how-to-have-your-benefits-paid

robatwork

innovate wrote: »

The existing system doesn't exchange the images, they still exchange paper. So a huge change in processes, and supporting IT systems, would be needed. It is almost certainly cheaper to buy a reasonably tried and tested system from the US. And in the process, completely eliminate the people and equipment cost associated with the handling of physical pieces of paper and the scanning - all being done by the customers. Must be a gigantic cost saver.

Many years back I did some work at BACS in Edgware in the "clearing room". I was suddenly in some Dickensian world of long rows of desks, scores of people suddenly sat in rows (think Ron Weasly sat down for dinner at Hogwarts).


Then the trollies came in, full of cheques, marked Lloyds...Natwest etc...


And then I guess they were "cleared" - not sure what mysterious process was used but it struck me as fantastically labour intensive.

chambta

A_Flock_Of_Sheep wrote: »

The person behind the bank window who takes it off you for a start or empties the deposit machine.

I still get my Premium Bond prizes by cheque.

Do you still get Giros off the dole for the post office?

Do I personally get Giros? What makes you think that I would?

They are all pretty poor examples to be fair.

JuicyJesus

A_Flock_Of_Sheep wrote: »

I don't know why you are so anti-cheques anyway. If you don't like them don't use them. No skin of your nose really is it i someone likes to use them and you don't.

Here you go:

1) Their continued use costs money to and causes undue inconvenience to banks disproportionate to their usefulness. Fraud (cheques are already responsible for very large amounts of fraud), the cost of which has to be absorbed into other things and passed on to us, the consumers; the cost required to process them, which is passed on to business banking customers through their banking tariffs; and, yes, through staff required to handle them (not bank cashiers, they will still be around and still are despite drastically reduced cheque volumes and the existence of automated paying-in machines).

2) Their continued use costs money to and causes undue inconvenience to small businesses disproportionate to their usefulness. The risk of being a victim of fraud (business cheque books have about 100 cheques in each, have one of those stolen and it's fraudster party time), the cost of processing them (always more expensive than the equivalent electronic credit), the risk of receiving a fraudulent cheque or draft, the credit risk of a cheque you've paid in bouncing (which also attracts a fee and results in you being out both the amount of the cheque and the goods you released on the strength of it), the inability to use the money for at least three, usually four working days after you paid it in (with no guarantee of fate) when an electronic credit will be in and cleared for fate, at the very latest, T+2 but most likely these days T+0, less ease of reconciliation (no payee names on statements, no breakdown of who's paid in what if you pay in a bunch of cheques at the same time...)

3) Their continued use costs money and causes inconvenience to consumers disproportionate to their usefulness for many of the same reasons they do to small businesses, in addition to extra issues with reconciliation (write a cheque and it doesn't get cashed straight away? Better make sure you have that much money in your account for up to six years - the legal validity period of a cheque - or you'll get a returned fee and maybe even a bad mark on your credit history).

They had their uses, but now we have debit cards, Faster Payments and many many many other services which make them completely redundant bar a very few niche reasons, of which "paying for your shopping in the supermarket" is not one that springs to mind. They cost banks money, they cost businesses money and, directly or indirectly, they cost YOU money. If you wish to use them out of some form of petulant spite, I strongly feel you should pay the direct cost for doing so so that none of us who managed to drag ourselves out of the 1980s have to bear the indirect cost for you in using an expensive, wasteful, fraud-prone and inefficient payment method that has many far better alternatives for reasons which can be basically summarised as "because I want to".

I don't smoke but don't moan about others that do. It's their choice.

I just really don't get why you have such a fetish for cheques. It's your choice, but it's also my right to question exactly why you love them so much.

innovate

JJ, I fear you are wasting your breath. There will be some cheque books which will only stop being used once their owners passed away. Let them die in dignity, all this new-fangled Internet, faster payments, direct debits, contactless, phone payments etc stuff is not for them. Sometimes they don't even know about it, sometimes it scares their socks off, but bottom line is they can't cope with letting go of the past.

Though there is a massively reasonable chance that, in the not too distant future, there will be no consumers left who even know what a cheque is. Keep the faith.

Mikeyorks

robatwork wrote: »

Many years back I did some work at BACS in Edgware in the "clearing room".

Then the trollies came in, full of cheques, marked Lloyds...Natwest etc...

And then I guess they were "cleared"

That puzzles me. 'BACS' stands for Bankers Automated Clearing Systems and was set up, in 1968, expressly to develop electronic payments.

They had no relationship to cheques or cheque clearing - which was always conducted from Lombard Street (apart from a spell during the war) before moving for several years to the Nat West site at Goodmans Fields. Before finally moving out to Milton Keynes.

innovate

Mikeyorks wrote: »

They had no relationship to cheques or cheque clearing - which was always conducted from Lombard Street (apart from a spell during the war) before moving for several years to the Nat West site at Goodmans Fields. Before finally moving out to Milton Keynes.

Are you saying all cheques from everybody magically ended up in Lombard Street, and then in Goodmans Fields, and then onto MK? How did / do all the cheques know they had / have to go there?

Mikeyorks

innovate wrote: »

The existing system doesn't exchange the images, they still exchange paper.

Not since around 1996 when the InterBank Data Exchange (IBDE) system was created.

For 20 years now cheques have been processed on high speed transports which both image them - for storage - and create an electronic record via the MICR line. The electronic record is used for clearing and the IBDE network was built to facilitate that + additional security.

The physical cheques are still sent on, belatedly, to a central part of each Bank in case of dishonours / the odd fraud check. But the physical cheque plays no part in clearing after an electronic record is created from it.

How did / do all the cheques know they had / have to go there?

Er ..... because the Bank you deposit with / the CC company you pay / the utility company you pay ........ all know where cheques are cleared? And have courier pick ups timed to get the cheques to the appropriate point in the early hours. Processing takes place during the night and on until 1100hrs and files are created and aimed at the Banks shortly afterwards. It's been happening for a very long time.