Are cheques a remnant of the past that should be laid to rest, or are they still useful?
Cheques in Decline
According to research published by Pay.UK in January 2022, 3/5 of consumers and businesses write less cheques than they did three years ago, meaning cheques are used far less than they used to be.
However, 44% of current account holders and 78% of businesses still write at least one cheque a year. Therefore, cheques are still used, albeit rather occasionally.
In fact, 95% of charities still receive donations as cheques!
Why are People Using Less Cheques?
They found that 2/3 of current account holders and half of all businesses who now write fewer cheques do so because other payment methods are easier. This is because we now have easier alternatives, like debit and credit cards, online and mobile banking, and direct debit options.
Cheques are also expensive for banks to process, and for those writing them or receiving them, they can quite honestly be a bit of a faff!
This said, for those receiving cheques, some banks now allow you to process these via mobile banking from the comfort of your own home… you just use your phone camera to scan the cheque! Perhaps this is indicative of the old and the new coming together, wherein we can retain the use of cheques whilst using technology to make them easier.
Here we can see that there are a whole host of reasons why individuals and businesses still choose to use cheques.
Pay.UK found that common reasons cited by current account users for still using cheques was for paying bills or giving a payment as a gift. Cheques can indeed be useful for if you want to pay someone whose bank details you don’t know.
Let’s imagine you want to give a family member money for their birthday, and you won’t see them in person. You wouldn’t necessarily want to put money in a card in the post in case it gets lost. You also might not want to ask for their bank details, as then it will ruin the surprise. Therefore, the best option would be to send a cheque!