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Come on Andrew! Cheques are far too modern for the new Britain being reforged by the coalition. Get the Payments Council to turn the clock back another century or so.

http://www.chyp.com/media/blog-entry/a-new-payment-instrument-for-britain

P.S. I hope you'll support my e-petition to reintroduce tally sticks. They were good enough for my great-great-grandfather and they should be good enough for you too.

Yes, it's true that cash "in circulation" is increasing. In fact, it's increasing as a share of GDP even while it is decreasing as a share of retail payments. This can only mean one thing: cash is being use primarily (and I do mean primarily - ie, more than 50%) for illegal purposes such as tax evasion, corruption, drug dealing and so on.

We should be reducing the number of ATMs year on year, raising the cost of withdrawals and penalising cash deposits. The will reduce bank (and everyone else's) costs. In return, banks that offer current accounts should be requried to provide free debit card services to customers with a zero interchange fee.

"will enable Brits and Americans to withdraw money from cash machines on both sides of the Atlantic"

I withdrew money from my current account on both sides of the Atlantic last week and it worked fine. Just letting you know.

The FT points at a cheaper and better plan.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2195845e-98dc-11e0-bd66-00144feab49a.html#a

Modesty forbids me from mentioning the source of the target, so to speak.

His granny is happy writing cheques because she isn't paying for them.

Look: the solution to this apparent quandary is quite simple. If the Daily Mail, Saga or a bunch of MPs want to carry on with cheques, there is nothing to stop them from obtaining a Payment Institution licence and running their own cheque scheme. I can't see what the problem is.

See http://digitaldebateblogs.typepad.com/digital_money/2011/03/cached.html

This makes no sense. The volume of cash out there is, indeed, increasing. But it is increasing at 20 times the rate of increase of retail sales. The extra cash is NOT being used for retail payments, it is being used for tax evasion, drug dealing, corruption and other anti-social purposes.

"lots of bankers who are running around talking about clouds and crowds(ourcing), social media, mobile payments, trust, leadership, Apps, APIs, innovation"

But this is the point: they're talking about it.  Meanwhile, M-PESA, Facebook Credits, Blippy, Zopa and Bling are happening.

I think they should fine the Bank of England for producing £50 notes, because I'm pretty sure that's how most crime in the UK is facilitated.

NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The cash isn't "in circulation" it's stuffed under mattresses.

http://digitaldebateblogs.typepad.com/digital_money/2010/02/unexplained-i-like-the-neutral-word.html

"6.5m old people have never used the Internet"

Not to worry, Martha Lane Fox is on to this one and it's all going to be fixed by 2012, which is six years before cheques go.  But one question: how do old people in the Netherlands or Finland (where there are no cheques) pay for things? Are our old people stupider in some way?  I think we should be told.