Yearning for the return of proper debit cards

Maegi

j.p said:

I miss my Visa Delta.

Enjoy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpGV4uhlT6w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHa_zRl3LaQ

Hattie627

Rob5342 said:

[Deleted User] said:

I really think cards themselves may be on the way out. What with the payment limit potentially being removed. Within 5/10 years you may have to request a card, else load it on your phone only. I don't think we are quite there yet but it is very possible. 

With PayPal credit you can have a card you add to Apple pay or Google Wallet without needing a physical card but you can request one if you want one. 

The old fashioned banks are probably a long way off that but I can see the modern banks like Monzo making physical cards optional, you can already add them to your phones wallet directly from the app. 

Cash is the only problem I suppose as for some reason cash machines don't accept contactless payments. 

I don't use cash machines much these days. Everything paid for by card, either online or at the shop, occasionally by phone. My hairdresser and window cleaner are both cash only. I keep cash handy in the house for the window cleaner. For the hairdresser I have to remember to get cash from a machine before going. I suppose the banks don't want to invest in new machines which would accept contactless (assuming this is possible) as they want to phase out cash and the machines must be costly to keep in operation.

Eco_Miser

MyRealNameToo said:

Section62 said:

la531983 said:

Yeah, lets bring back outdoor toilets, chequebooks, Teletext and fax machines!

Or, just simply accept life, security measures and technology move on.

The first of those is really useful if you do a lot of gardening, the second has never gone away (and remains reasonably well used).

Teletext lives on in BBC Red Button, and I'm fairly sure lawyers still enjoy communicating by fax (and apparently less hackable than emails).

And if your favourite retailer still has a clickclack machine for when they have power or internet blackouts then I could understand why still having an embossed card could be useful.

Think the outdoor toilets were in loo/lieu of indoor ones not in addition to them. Whilst maybe useful for gardening and summer BBQs dont think most wouldnt want their only toilet at the bottom of their garden even if a keen gardener

Given we are talking chequebooks not cheques... why do you think they are reasonably well used? Can't remember the last time I even saw a chequebook let alone known one to be used. In 1990 there were 4bn cheques paid in, in 2023 there was 0.1bn cheques paid in and you can be fairly sure the vast majority of those were corporate cheques printed on letter stock not someone filling in and tearing out a cheque from a chequebook.

Teletext was broadcast in the vertical blanking internal of the analogue TV broadcast. Whilst something called teletext still exists its a very different beast in the same way our local paper was physical and published daily and now is only an app... sure its got the same name and its still journalism but most wouldnt say the newspaper still exists. 

NHS was a much bigger user of fax machines than the legal sector when OfCom removed the requirement for telecommunications to have to support faxes. Used to send faxes alot 17 years ago but their death was quick in most areas. Whilst an unencrypted fax is more secure than an unencrypted email given it's basically a direct connection both are less secure than encyrpted messaging. 

My aunt's house (council, built 1954) had both an inside loo upstairs and an outside loo downstairs (not at the bottom of the garden). Very useful for children playing outside.

I last used a chequebook two weeks ago, I'm treasurer of a community group and we require two signatures.

HedgehogRulez

MyRealNameToo said:

When I was in the states a little before Covid a restaurant still used a click clack machine for taking card payments. I tried to point out that the card wasnt embossed so the carbon paper had only caught the outline of the card and not any details of it but they weren't interested - probably as Id only select the 15% tip. 

Devongardener said:

What would be the point of bringing them back?!

Certain bottom of the barrel hire car companies state that you must have an embossed credit card to be able to take your hire car - if you fail to produce such a card they won't allow you to take the car without paying for their CDW. Clearly just a scam but by all accounts they do allow you to take the car sans CDW if you can produce such a card. 

Not so, my scammer this year in Italy refused to accept my embossed Aqua credit card as “it wasn’t issued by a proper bank” 😆

JezR

Early cheque guarantee cards weren't made of plastic at all. They were boarded paper cards folded in the middle like you used to get for membership cards. They were introduced in 1966 with a limit of £30 for purchase or cashing a cheque in a branch of any bank within the scheme, which was pretty much all with the exception of Barclays. They were going it alone with Barclaycard.

MattMattMattUK

moneyaspie2024 said:

[Deleted User] said:

I really think cards themselves may be on the way out. What with the payment limit potentially being removed. Within 5/10 years you may have to request a card, else load it on your phone only. I don't think we are quite there yet but it is very possible. 

Not even close to that, how are you supposed to get cash if you needed it, can’t do it with your phone. 

The old saying goes don’t try to fix what isn’t broken. 

In the U.S. some places don’t actually accept mobile payments, this is the case with Walmart where they have their own payment platform, but unless you are a U.S. resident you can’t sign up or load cards to it, which leaves the only alternative for everyone else, a physical card. 

To remove the already high limit from the cards is ludicrous, contactless fraud is now rife and someone’s bank account could be cleared in literally a matter of seconds. 

Cash is nearly dead for starters, secondly there is no reason for cashpoints to need a physical card, a withdrawal could be authorised with a phone tap. 

Thirdly and perhaps most importantly it is broken, cheques, physical cards and cash are all much easier for fraudsters than Google Wallet or Apple Pay.

la531983

moneyaspie2024 said:

Section62 said:

I think Adsa are rolling out contactless.... but instruct you not to use* your phone on the forecourt. (*other retailers, including Sainsbury's, specify that 'use' is for anything, not just making calls.  Not sure Asda fully define 'use')

They have only just gotten round the new visa and Mastercard rules where a pre auth of £100 needs to be taken, some older pumps still have a £1 pre auth as they haven’t been updated. 

Contactless at pay at pump is a long way off. 

Absolute nonsense, my local unmanned Asda has pay at pump contactless, i use it at least once a week!

Rob5342

MattMattMattUK said:

moneyaspie2024 said:

[Deleted User] said:

I really think cards themselves may be on the way out. What with the payment limit potentially being removed. Within 5/10 years you may have to request a card, else load it on your phone only. I don't think we are quite there yet but it is very possible. 

Not even close to that, how are you supposed to get cash if you needed it, can’t do it with your phone. 

The old saying goes don’t try to fix what isn’t broken. 

In the U.S. some places don’t actually accept mobile payments, this is the case with Walmart where they have their own payment platform, but unless you are a U.S. resident you can’t sign up or load cards to it, which leaves the only alternative for everyone else, a physical card. 

To remove the already high limit from the cards is ludicrous, contactless fraud is now rife and someone’s bank account could be cleared in literally a matter of seconds. 

Cash is nearly dead for starters, secondly there is no reason for cashpoints to need a physical card, a withdrawal could be authorised with a phone tap. 

Thirdly and perhaps most importantly it is broken, cheques, physical cards and cash are all much easier for fraudsters than Google Wallet or Apple Pay.

Actually I used a NatWest cash machine today that had a contactless logo on it. I tapped my Monzo card on it but nothing happened so I don't know if it's a NatWest only thing or just a feature of the cash machine they don't use yet. 

WillPS

Rob5342 said:

MattMattMattUK said:

moneyaspie2024 said:

[Deleted User] said:

I really think cards themselves may be on the way out. What with the payment limit potentially being removed. Within 5/10 years you may have to request a card, else load it on your phone only. I don't think we are quite there yet but it is very possible. 

Not even close to that, how are you supposed to get cash if you needed it, can’t do it with your phone. 

The old saying goes don’t try to fix what isn’t broken. 

In the U.S. some places don’t actually accept mobile payments, this is the case with Walmart where they have their own payment platform, but unless you are a U.S. resident you can’t sign up or load cards to it, which leaves the only alternative for everyone else, a physical card. 

To remove the already high limit from the cards is ludicrous, contactless fraud is now rife and someone’s bank account could be cleared in literally a matter of seconds. 

Cash is nearly dead for starters, secondly there is no reason for cashpoints to need a physical card, a withdrawal could be authorised with a phone tap. 

Thirdly and perhaps most importantly it is broken, cheques, physical cards and cash are all much easier for fraudsters than Google Wallet or Apple Pay.

Actually I used a NatWest cash machine today that had a contactless logo on it. I tapped my Monzo card on it but nothing happened so I don't know if it's a NatWest only thing or just a feature of the cash machine they don't use yet. 

Natwest cash machines are not yet contactless enabled, although the hardware is now pretty widespread.

Santander have enabled contactless on their machines with the requisite hardware - not sure if it's only Santander cards or all LINK.

TheBanker

Section62 said:

MyRealNameToo said:

Section62 said:

la531983 said:

Yeah, lets bring back outdoor toilets, chequebooks, Teletext and fax machines!

Or, just simply accept life, security measures and technology move on.

The first of those is really useful if you do a lot of gardening, the second has never gone away (and remains reasonably well used).

Teletext lives on in BBC Red Button, and I'm fairly sure lawyers still enjoy communicating by fax (and apparently less hackable than emails).

And if your favourite retailer still has a clickclack machine for when they have power or internet blackouts then I could understand why still having an embossed card could be useful.

...
Given we are talking chequebooks not cheques... why do you think they are reasonably well used? Can't remember the last time I even saw a chequebook let alone known one to be used. In 1990 there were 4bn cheques paid in, in 2023 there was 0.1bn cheques paid in and you can be fairly sure the vast majority of those were corporate cheques printed on letter stock not someone filling in and tearing out a cheque from a chequebook.
...

0.1bn looks like a really small number, unless you write it as 100,000,000.  If we accept your "vast majority" as true, and put a figure of 1% on personal cheques, that would be around a million personal cheques per year.

This is what I mean by "reasonably well used". (as in, not yet obsolete)

That you can't remember the last time you saw a chequebook let alone known one to be used, doesn't mean they aren't.  Head over to the regular saver thread and you'll note that making the first payment into a postal regular saver by cheque is a useful technique, and some building societies - notably currently the Scottish Building Society - insist on having a cheque sent to them as the first deposit for a postal application.

The point being - one person's perception of something being outdated and no longer useful doesn't equate to that being a fact.  Most of us have no need for embossed cards, but as another poster pointed out, there are parts of the world and certain types of transaction where not having an embossed card could be an issue.

It's all relative. Cheques were used for just 0.2% of payments in the UK in 2024, and that figure is dropping - cheque use in 2024 was down 17% compared to the previous year.

In August this year (the latest month data is publically availalable) there were 6.5 million cheques, compared to 490 million Faster Payments and 2,300 million card payments.

Even though cheque clearing is now electronic rather than paper based, the system still costs money to operate, and as volumes decline this means the cost per cheque increases. So how long the banks will continue to subsidise non-business customers who insist on continued cheque use remains to be seen. Some other countries have already announced dates when their cheque clearing systems will be closed down. 

Stats if anyone is interested:
https://www.wearepay.uk/what-we-do/payment-systems/payment-statistics-overview/
https://www.ukfinance.org.uk/data-and-research/data/card-spending
https://www.ukfinance.org.uk/policy-and-guidance/reports-and-publications/uk-payment-markets-2025