MSE News: Cheques will NOT be axed after U-turn

pmduk · 18 July 2011 at 11:07AM

I note that you've still not agreed to pay the true cost of the system. Anybody wanting to use a paper system could always buy postal orders.

IceQueen · 18 July 2011 at 11:33AM

Why should I use a postal order when I’ve a perfectly good cheque book and the fact that the Payment Council has u-turned and said that cheques won’t be abolished. I don’t pay bank charges for cheques or anything because I am in credit, if you aren’t in credit and have to pay bank charges then that’s your fault, not mine.

The fact is that millions of cheques are still written every day whether you like it or not, for a wide range of reasons. If it had been possible or practicable for cheques to be abolished immediately, which is what those who are anti cheque seem to be saying, then that would have happened. The fact that it hasn’t happened shows that electronic solutions cannot be a substitute in every case and nor can postal orders.

pmduk, I think it’s time you faced facts that cheques are here to stay for many years to come, and quite rightly so. Let’s have no more whinging.

pmduk · 18 July 2011 at 11:52AM

My only whinge is that all customers are paying for your use of the chequebook. Not in fees, but lower interest rates. You remain in the 19th century with your head in the sand. It's just sad that the payments council has had to bow down to the same type of people who opposed the wheel when it was invented.

EarthBoy · 18 July 2011 at 12:11PM

IceQueen wrote: »

.... I don’t pay bank charges for cheques or anything because I am in credit, .. ...

At the moment, maybe, but free in-credit banking wasn't always the case. As cheques become rarer, and more expensive for the banks to process, don't be surprised if they introduce a charge for them.

IceQueen · 18 July 2011 at 12:18PM

pmduk, in post 30 you referred to cheques as being

a system which costs bank customers a huge sum of money each year

I naturally assumed you meant in bank charges, but in post 34 you say

Not in fees, but lower interest rates

I sense a shifting of the goal posts here, but trying to say that the cost of cheques has resulted in lower interest rates is about as daft as you can get. If you can’t come up with anything more plausible than that I feel its game over.

IceQueen · 18 July 2011 at 12:32PM

Earthboy wrote: »

At the moment, maybe, but free in-credit banking wasn't always the case. As cheques become rarer, and more expensive for the banks to process, don't be surprised if they introduce a charge for them.

This is of course absolute rubbish. Surely it’s a no brainer to see that if the total number of cheques written each year reduces, and as is now happening, then the total cost of the same to the banks will also reduce. To suggest that banks will charge for cheques raises a purely hypothetical argument and one which I feel is unlikely at best for a range of commercial reasons as far as private customers are concerned. So trying to frighten people into abandoning cheques because they might be charged for in future is pretty weak stuff.

pmduk · 18 July 2011 at 1:09PM

Who on earth do you think pays for free banking? The banks make their money by the difference in money charged and money paid to customers. You are really living in cloud-cuckoo land if you think they do it out of the goodness of their hearts. The infra-structure will remain the same , but paid for over a dwindling number of cheques written by diehards like yourself. Therefore the cost per cheque will increase, the banks won't swallow that additional cost for long.

Accept it, you're defending the indefensible.

alanq · 18 July 2011 at 1:12PM

IceQueen wrote: »

This is of course absolute rubbish. Surely it’s a no brainer to see that if the total number of cheques written each year reduces, and as is now happening, then the total cost of the same to the banks will also reduce.

But the cost to the banks PER CHEQUE will increase. At a time when they can get little interest from the funds folks have in their cheque accounts the banks will either have to charge (per cheque or with monthly fees) or make a loss on each cheque. Guess which they will choose!

IceQueen · 18 July 2011 at 2:19PM

pmduk, I stand by every word I wrote previously. There’s no need for cheques to be abolished now or in 2018 and the arguments you have put forward so far are indeed total rubbish. If the banks are ever daft enough to charge customers for writing cheques, then we can cross that bridge if or when we ever come to it; but your talking about a charge that may never happen is bogus. Why don’t you come up with something more valid?

IceQueen · 18 July 2011 at 2:20PM

Alanq, you assume that the cost to the bank per cheque will increase but that may not be the case as banking technology steadily improves. In any event the total cost will reduce as the number of cheques reduces, and if you understood anything about business and balance sheets, you’d know that what counts is the bottom line.

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MSE News: Cheques will NOT be axed after U-turn

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