What next for the Great British Cheque?

The UK enjoys one of the best, most efficient and varied payment systems in the world. We are a nation increasingly confident in managing our household bills, shopping and one-off payments from our homes or offices, and 24-hour payment systems and services have developed to suit our increasingly busy lifestyles.

In May 2008 the Payments Council published the first-ever National Payments Plan, setting strategy for payments for the next ten years. A main focus of the Plan is the future of cheques, and a major programme of work has been initiated to develop a set of actions to address this. These will include:

•  A timetable for developing alternatives to cheques;
• An objective review of the UK Domestic Cheque Guarantee Card Scheme;
• An education and marketing plan on alternatives to cheques; and,
• Potentially, a target end date for the cheque clearing.

The Plan highlights that the long-term decline of cheques needs to be managed carefully, and the Payments Council has emphasised that acceptable alternative arrangements to cheques have to be available to all users before the closure of the cheque clearing can be seriously contemplated.