Cheques

Stuff reports:

Slipped a cheque in the mail lately? Or left one on the back porch for the lawnmower man?

The stereotype of a cheque user is elderly and a little distrustful of the digital world.

But a study on how best to nurse cheques through their last few, terminal years has found that is not necessarily true.

Bank-owned payments regulator Payments NZ is working on a project to help its bank owners through the phasing-out process.

The results will not be public until later this year, but early hints confound some of the more common stereotypes.

The vast majority – about 90 per cent – of cheque users also use electronic banking, says Payments NZ chief executive Steve Nichols.

Only a small proportion is wholly reliant on cheques.

Most users write a mere five to seven cheques a year, suggesting they do most of their transacting by other means.

I do not think I have done a cheque for some years. I will even ring people and ask for bank account numbers than do a cheque. Thi is partly because I rarely go to the post office also, so dislike having to post things.

But more to the point Internet Banking means your bank records show who you paid and why. Cheques do not. Maybe a feature for banks to consider is the ability to electronically edit or tag transaction lines, so if you do write a cheque you can have recorded in your bank records who it was to, and why.