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Cash back credit cards are available in the UK - the John Lewis credit card (managed by HSBC) has been offering it for more than five years. Nationwide also introduced it several years ago. However, both offer 0.5%. If PayPal offer 2% it is a significant reward.

I am unsure how many people outside of the USA would trust having their money managed by a US corporation. I certainly wouldn't here in the UK.

I will never allow my mobile telephone supplier to have access to my financial transactions. They are already unscrupulous when it comes to collecting information. Who knows what they would do with this additional info?

Lu, again no idea on the radioactive compound. I was 19 and naiive. The paper vouchers looked exactly like today's business cheques (checks), i.e. large in size, but had a series of diffent sized circular punched holes through the centre horzontally - exactly the same as paper tape, if you remember what that is. They also had your bank details in MICR along the bottom, exactly the same as cheques today. I believe that they were retrieved from the machine in the morning and then put into clearing the same way as regular cheques.

Ketharaman, there are no photographs, although Barclays themselves may have a copy in their archives. You need to understand that ten pounds was a significant sum of money in the UK in 1967. In my first job I earned 14 pounds per week before tax, and that included shift allowance. Barclays sent a pack of five ten pound cheques to their customers in the post for you to use as you wished. I am certain that the ATM's were stand alone - i.e. no links to a central computer. They installed a number of these ATM's around the country - I used one in Cardiff in South Wales in 1971. I have no idea how long they were in use before being replaced by the next generation.

I was under the impression that Germany is the biggest user of cash in the Western world. It is the Germans who insist on the continuation of the printing of the 500 Euro note, the largest note in circulation in Europe. If you want to get rid of cash. get rid of large value notes

As someone who worked nearby and banked with Barclays at the time I used the ATM when it first appeared. What is not mentioned in this article, or any other article in the press, is that it did not use plastic cards. You were sent five ten pound cheques in the post and you then inserted the cheques in the machine to get ten pounds out. The cheques had paper tape punched holes through the middle and your sort code and account number in MICR along the bottom.

Predicting the future is notoriously difficult. Look at the film Back to to future, made in 1985. It did not predict mobile telephones or the internet, but did predict flying cars. Every time I see a survey of 2000 people or less predicting the future I laugh at the results.

We live in an Apple free household. After buying two Apple proucts and having appalling after sales service, we have never purchased anything from them again. It is all very well providing innovative products, but customer service is a neccessity if you want to retain customers.

I agree with Katharaman. BlackBerry and Nokia were individual companies that failled to adapt to changing technology. Individual banks may lose their customers over time to more innovative players, but most will adapt. A significant number of people do not need a sophisticated bank any more than they need a sophisticated phone.