I lose track

[andrewducker]

I just had to go and check what year it is.

I blame the end of cheques* - I haven't had to actually write (or type) the year at all in months, so I haven't gone through the whole process of writing "2010" and then having to scribble it out to write "2011" instead.

*I haven't used a cheque in a couple of years. I assume my chequebook is somewhere in my flat, but fuck knows where. Last time we needed to pay builders/plumbers/etc. I just did a direct bank transfer.

Comments

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

I don't think I have written a cheque for years. Certainly long enough that I can't remember the last time I used my chequebook. The banks have been announcing they will phase out cheques for as long as I can remember, but never seem to have managed to do so. The current target is 2018 according to the UK Payment Council, but this target has been pushed back numerous times, presumably because of the lack of an easy to use alternative. It would be interesting to know what sort of ideas they are considering as alternatives.

[andrewducker]

Postal Orders would seem to allow most of the same things, but I don't know what they miss.

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

There's not a lot of difference really. I don't think you can cancel a postal order, but that's about the only difference I can think of. But the problem with cheques is the cost of processing them, not least because it means small pieces of paper being shipped around the country and eventually stored. The replacement will have to be electronic, but exactly what that will be I don't know.

[andrewducker]

Surely we already have a replacement - direct bank transfers? Now that the Faster Payments System is in place I can send cash to my brother in less than two hours entirely online. What else do I need?

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

But it's not convenient. You have to be online, on a phone or in a bank for starters. You also have to know the account number and sort code, which are not easy to remember, and I would imagine the chances of typing in either one incorrectly must be significant.

[andrewducker]

Making mistakes would be easy, I guess. Not happened to me so far - it would be nice if you had confirmation of who it was going to.

Apps for transferring money would be nice, and having a simple way of transferring account details back and forth wouldn't hurt.

I'm not too fussed by you having to be online - by 2018 everyone will be, and smartphones will own 95% of the phone market. NFC will make a difference here, too. Bump phones with someone and transfer them the cash like that.

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

it would be nice if you had confirmation of who it was going to

Indeed it would. I'm sure that some people would be really, really interested in a mechanism that gave you personal details from an arbitrary bank account and sort code. :-)

[andrewducker]

Well, yes. There are clearly _good_ reasons why you don't get that.

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

I have set up a Western Union online account so I can transfer money to a friend in the US ... it was surprising (or not) how much personal ID I had to find before they would let me send the money.

PayPal is a pretty reasonable way of transferring money too (if you don't mind the costs and letting ebay have your personal details).

And I use telephone banking a fair bit too, for paying bills and transferring money to people. It would be good if there was a way that people could send your bank their bank details so you could just pick them off a list ("yes, I'd like to pay Andrew Ducker some money ... oh, you've got his details there ready to receive this money, excellent!") and that shouldn't be hard at all. It could even be obfuscated so that *I* would never learn your bank details but the bank could still make the payment into your account.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

Realistically, it's going to end up that you can transfer money through facebook.

Of course, at this point, I'll raise the issue of the numerous friends who claim to have had their facebook "hacked". Or just have their browser remember their details, even when not-quite-friends and random people are using their phone or their computer.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

Are they just phasing out chequebooks, or cheques/bank draft functionality entirely?

You don't need a chequebook to produce a cheque. You don't even need an official form from a bank to write a cheque (though it helps)

[andrewducker]

Nothing more definitive than "We want to get rid of cheques by 2018" - which would presumably include the clearing houses.