My local Sainsbury's stoppedacceptingcheques yesterday. And so did yours. And every Sainsbury's across the country. None of them are accepting cheques any more - ostensibly "to help stop cheque fraud", but in reality because very few Sainsbury's shoppers still use them. And because cheques can't be scanned easily and so cost a lot more to process. And because there's little more annoying than being stuck in a checkout queue behind someone paying by cheque (except perhaps being stuck behind someone paying by credit card when the card doesn't work). Sainsbury's have helpfully published a fully comprehensive FAQ to help behind-the-times shoppers adapt to the new rules ("I have a latex allergy. What are the buttons on your chip and PIN terminals made of?"). But, no matter what your problem, writing a cheque at the checkout is no longer an option.
And Sainsbury's are not alone. Argos have gone cheque-free in the last week or so, as have Morrisons. It's the same story at Asda, Boots and WH Smith, and even London Underground ticket offices stopped accepting cheques a couple of weeks ago. The days of writing out amounts in words and figures are surely numbered.
I can barely remember the last time I paid for something by cheque, whereas I used to use them all the time. So I thought I'd flick back through an old pile of chequebook stubs to count up how many cheques I'd torn out in each of the last 8 years. I used to write the equivalent of one cheque every 6 days, but now it's more like 6 cheques in three years. I blame Chip and Pin, and the relentless advance of online banking. Here are the figures.
Number of cheques I wrote in each year
1999
60
2000
52
2001
38
2002
12
2003
11
2004
3
2005
2
2006
1
2007
0
So I'm not going to miss the demise of cheques at all. Probably. Unless I'm trying to pay money by post. Or unless I'm in the backwoods of somewhere like Northumberland, where I noticed several restaurants which still don't accept new-fangled plastic, only good old cheques. Or unless my debit card gets stolen and I have no other means of payment for a week while my replacement arrives. In fact, maybe I ought to hang onto my cheque book for a bit longer, just in case. And society ought to think twice before consigning cheques to oblivion because for some people, and on certain occasions, there is still no practical alternative.
