Survey: Check Usage Declines
Aug 16th, 2007
Related to my last story this one quotes a Which? magazine article outlining a decline in check usage.
A new survey shows that people in the UK that they don’t write as many checks as they used to. However, the new figures, from Which?, also say that consumers are not ready to give checks up and begin paying by card just yet. Some retailers, on the other hand, have either already quit accepting cards or are looking at doing so.
What’s interesting about this story is that it goes on to say that not all of the decline is consumer driven. Some companies, including some Wal*Mart stores have actually banned checks as a payment method.
From Check Usage Declines. And from the orginal articles about checks on Which?.
An Asda spokesman said: ‘Cheques do take time and we know queues are a bugbear. Paying by cheque is more time-consuming than by card or cash.’
The move follows car fuel giant Shell’s decision last September to stop accepting cheques at its 586 forecourts in the UK.
However not everyone accepts the decline:
But cheques are still a popular way of paying smaller businesses and traders, such as plumbers and builders.
A spokesman for the Federation of Small Businesses said: ‘A large proportion of our members and small businesses in general still deal in cheques. They shouldn’t be penalised for that and should be able to carry on.
‘I think there will be a natural evolution away from cheques to other forms of payment and the cheque will probably die out. But for the moment we don’t think people who want to pay by cheque should be forced to do otherwise.’
Note: in the UK (and in Canada) where these articles were written “check” is spelled as “cheque.”
The results of the survey still show that 57% find checks very useful.
| Cheques: Your opinions on the value of cheques | |
|---|---|
| Your views | % agreement |
| Use cheques less than they did 5 years ago |  72% |
| Find cheques really useful | 57% |
| Have paid by cheque at least once in the past month | 55% |
| Have received at least one cheque in the past month | 40% |
| Find it annoying to get a cheque | 23% |
| Have been refused when trying to pay by cheque in the past year | 4% |
Source for the check usage survey chart.
