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Because such a high proportion of shoppers pay by debit card and ask for "cashback", our local supermarket sometimes runs short of cash!
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Well it certainly proves how effective the scheme is for supermarkets in reducing the levels of cash on the premises before it's transferred to the bank...:-)
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Likely to prove more popular yet as cheques disappear and you need to pay the window cleaner.
Not sure how that's going to pan out actually. Had to give a security deposit on a holiday cottage the other day, and she wanted a cheque, which we couldn't do. Her fallback was an internet banking transfer, which we did, but not everyone will be able to do that. Not me old mum or my mother in law, for a start, who are still happily renting holiday cottages!
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Postal orders. I used one for the first time ever a few weeks ago to pay someone for a second hand spare part for my Volvo they then posted to me from Norn Iron. When cheques go, I expect these to become popular again.
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As a letter in the DT points out, a cheque is simply a written instruction from a customer to his bank to pay out some of his money. It can be written on almost anything, not necessarily a pre-printed form.
Does that mean banks will cease to honour instructions from their customers in future? Wouldn't that render them liable to legal action?
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...It can be written on almost anything...
Not many of us have access to a cow, or the means to write on it.
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>> Not many of us have access to a cow, or the means to write on it.
www.meltonmowbraymarket.co.uk/livestock
www.sharpie.co.uk/
:)
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HMRC are said to be homing in on plumbers/joiners etc for not declaring cash jobs. Losing cheques would increase the likelihood of non declaration of cash so Govt might keep cheques - it appears that is only the Banks that want to get rid of cheques - customers want the option to use cheques.
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I get about a dozen or more cheques a week from customers (I deliver to their homes) and it will be a nuisance when they go as not everyone keeps ready cash these days and there are no convenient machines in small villages.
The alternative will presumably be carting round some expensive piece of electronic trickery to process cards? Bring it on, NOT :-(
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There will be an equivalent of cheques to replace them but the processes behind them will be much simpler. You'll hand over the 'cheque' and the person will pay it into their bank. Their bank will process the payment.
The current system has the cheque being sent all the way back to your bank for processing which is expensive. And if it still happens, the information on the front of the cheque (amount being paid) is printed on the front in magnetic ink. All overly complicated.
I popped into our local iron mongers type store for a bolt today. Instead of putting my card in a machine and entering a PIN I just had to hold it over the machine. No PIN was needed.
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My Barclaycard purports to have the facility to pay transactions below £10 just by touching the card onto a pad. I have yet to find an outlet providing the service though
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>> My Barclaycard purports to have the facility to pay transactions below £10
This was the first time I have used this facility with my Barclays debit card. It was less than £10 too.
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>> My Barclaycard purports to have the facility to pay transactions below £10 just by touching
>> the card onto a pad. I have yet to find an outlet providing the service
>> though
Fairly common in local sandwich bars here in 'Legal London'. Not many to be found in Northampton though - possibly in MaccyD's.
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...My Barclaycard purports to have the facility to pay transactions below £10 just by touching the card onto a pad...
So-called contactless debit cards, as pioneered by Barclays.
Don't know if it's catching on, or if any other bank offers it:
www.barclays.co.uk/Helpsupport/Barclayscontactlessdebitcards/P1242561764200
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There is a "convenient" machine in my village but it charges £1.75 per withdrawal, regardless of the amount. I still see people using it though.
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Certainly in this neck of the woods that is a "tax" on the poor immobile...
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One of my enginneers had a theory years ago that the supermarkets giving cash back was not just the saving on Securicor collecting cash but the ability to pass on any forged notes before the bank confiscated them.
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Debit card "cashback" causes shortage of cash - Stuartli
