Yearning for the return of proper debit cards

[Deleted User]

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. 

The technology already exists to withdraw cash out without a card. Some cash machines even have contactless, although I have yet to see it turned on.

The states is always behind. I remember swiping my card in 2019 because a place didn’t have chip and pin!

regardless, we are not that far away. I am not saying it will be forced on people, rather like the cheque book now, a card would have to be requested. If it did happen, I would be able to get on fine without a card. I was recently in the states and contactless was available in most places. And I am sure you could get a travel card. Don’t even get me started on china, some places don’t even accept cards. It’s all apps!! On one occasion I had to pay via a webpage to order food at a restaurant because they took neither cash or card.

TheBanker

[Deleted User] 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. 

The technology already exists to withdraw cash out without a card. Some cash machines even have contactless, although I have yet to see it turned on.

The states is always behind. I remember swiping my card in 2019 because a place didn’t have chip and pin!

regardless, we are not that far away. I am not saying it will be forced on people, rather like the cheque book now, a card would have to be requested. If it did happen, I would be able to get on fine without a card. I was recently in the states and contactless was available in most places. And I am sure you could get a travel card. Don’t even get me started on china, some places don’t even accept cards. It’s all apps!! On one occasion I had to pay via a webpage to order food at a restaurant because they took neither cash or card.

I believe Chase already make you request a new plastic card when the old one expires rather than sending it automatically. I'm not sure if they apply this to everyone, or just customers who didn't use the card. And I think at least one of the app type banks had a charge of £5 if you wanted a plastic card.

You're right, it will come - cards will be something you have to request when opening new accounts, then they'll be something you have to proactively request on renewal, then we might see a small fee introduced on the basis of environmental reasons. Alongside that we will probably see retailers adopting cheaper terminals, which don't have a slot, just a contactless reader. 

MattMattMattUK

I have never understood why so many people are desperate to cling to outdated and less effective tech. I am in my early forties, never written a cheque, the only ones I have received in the last decade were HMRC and the DVLA, not used cash in nearly six years and barely for several years before that, probably used a physical card less than ten times in the last five years. 

All those older methods are slower, less efficient, costly to operate and much more open to fraud, I cannot see why people are so resistant to adopting them.

Bridlington1

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.

For what it's worth, cheques have ended up being something of a compromise candidate when exchanging money between me and my grandma.

My grandma doesn't trust internet/app banking, she refuses to use it, therefore if she wants to give someone money for whatever reason she'll default to cash. For me cash is generally an inconvenience, I never use cash to buy anything, I do all spending by card, if I receive cash I typically end up having to travel 2 miles to a McColls with a post office in it to deposit the cash so is more of a faff.

Cheques on the other hand are something I can deposit into one of my current accounts in a banking app there and then, so if she needs to give me money for whatever reason (e.g. if I've ordered something online for her), she'll just write me a cheque. Of course I'd rather her learn how to use online banking and do faster payments, but given she's unwilling to do this then cheque's the next best option.

My approach is I'll just use whichever method is most profitable to me or the easiest if it makes little/no difference. It's rare I use cheques, but I do still use them occasionally. I'm not really loyal to any one payment method though.

Rob5342

MattMattMattUK said:

I have never understood why so many people are desperate to cling to outdated and less effective tech. I am in my early forties, never written a cheque, the only ones I have received in the last decade were HMRC and the DVLA, not used cash in nearly six years and barely for several years before that, probably used a physical card less than ten times in the last five years. 

All those older methods are slower, less efficient, costly to operate and much more open to fraud, I cannot see why people are so resistant to adopting them.

I don't understand it either, some people seem to have an irrational fear of change even when everything points towards our being a good thing. A few years ago my mother in law was saying she thought her BT broadband was quite expensive, I found her a few cheaper options but she wasn't interested in changing because "she liked BT" and seemed to think that she would be letting them down if she moved elsewhere. 

Section62

MattMattMattUK said:

I have never understood why so many people are desperate to cling to outdated and less effective tech. I am in my early forties, never written a cheque, the only ones I have received in the last decade were HMRC and the DVLA, not used cash in nearly six years and barely for several years before that, probably used a physical card less than ten times in the last five years. 

All those older methods are slower, less efficient, costly to operate and much more open to fraud, I cannot see why people are so resistant to adopting them.

Because what works for you might not work for them.  Things which - admittedly are likely edge cases rather than the norm - are important functionality to the people who use them... for example paying for something in a rural area with no mobile and broadband is a lot easier if you can give the seller cash or a cheque rather than travelling together somewhere you can make the payment by electronic means.

I've never understood why some people cannot put themselves in someone else's shoes to see an issue from a different side.  Why would someone get angry that a payment method which works for some people is still made available, given that they themselves are not being forced to use it?

MattMattMattUK

Section62 said:

MattMattMattUK said:

I have never understood why so many people are desperate to cling to outdated and less effective tech. I am in my early forties, never written a cheque, the only ones I have received in the last decade were HMRC and the DVLA, not used cash in nearly six years and barely for several years before that, probably used a physical card less than ten times in the last five years. 

All those older methods are slower, less efficient, costly to operate and much more open to fraud, I cannot see why people are so resistant to adopting them.

Because what works for you might not work for them.  Things which - admittedly are likely edge cases rather than the norm - are important functionality to the people who use them... for example paying for something in a rural area with no mobile and broadband is a lot easier if you can give the seller cash or a cheque rather than travelling together somewhere you can make the payment by electronic means.

I think that is more than edge, moving to not real. Contactless does not require the person paying has an internet connection and any business taking them is going to have sorted out their connectivity requirements. To pay with cash one would need to have collected it from somewhere first so it would still involve travelling. The people I know of who are resistant to change are not doing it because of lack of ability to use it, but because of a blind resistance to change. It works for pretty much everyone, those clinging to outdated payment methods are not doing so because of necessity, but because they refuse to accept change.

Section62 said:

I've never understood why some people cannot put themselves in someone else's shoes to see an issue from a different side.  Why would someone get angry that a payment method which works for some people is still made available, given that they themselves are not being forced to use it?

Providing and supporting those legacy systems increases costs to business which is passed onto the rest of us, it makes the economy less efficient which negatively impacts all of us and most of all because the vast majority of the time they are being dishonest about their reasoning. If they were honest and said "I don't like change and am being deliberately stubborn" then I would disagree with their rationale but admire their honesty, instead the make up reasons, often outright lying as to why they will not change and want to keep using archaic processes. It is frustrating that the rest of us have to carry the cost of those people refusing to change, but it is even worse that they choose to lie to us as their claimed justification for refusal to change.

Section62

TheBanker said:

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. 
...

A date was previously announced for the UK.

The UK Payments Council said it would be by October 2018.

Sharp-eyed forum members will quickly spot that was 7 years ago, yet we can all still use cheques (and without additional fees for personal customers)

Government policy can always change, but for now (as of October 2025) it doesn't seem they are ready to let banks say good riddance to the personal cheque.

https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2025-10-14/HL11000/

It is all relative, which is why I carefully chose the words "reasonably well used".  Not "very common" or "insanely popular".

SacredStephan

[Deleted User] said:

The technology already exists to withdraw cash out without a card. Some cash machines even have contactless, although I have yet to see it turned on.

I haven't seen this in the UK but its common in France and Spain. You still have to enter the PIN.

[Deleted User]

SacredStephan said:

[Deleted User] said:

The technology already exists to withdraw cash out without a card. Some cash machines even have contactless, although I have yet to see it turned on.

I haven't seen this in the UK but its common in France and Spain. You still have to enter the PIN.

Santander machines have a contactless reader (not sure if it works)

Natwest and Rbs, allow withdrawal from atm via app, I believe Barclays does as well now (you can create a QR code in the app and scan it at the machine). Of course it has to be the banks atm, so there are some limitations. Barclays seem to claim it can work overseas, not sure how that would work.