Farewell to the cheque

These cheque books look well-used, but I suspect they may just be badly made!

People have been writing cheques since perhaps the 9th century, and books of them began to be issued in 1830.

But now they are to be ended - although they have already been phased out already in much of Europe.

I'm not much given to being a Luddite. But I do just wonder how it can all work. If you are an old person, who can't use on-line banking, should not be keeping wads of cash in the house, and who is not able to deal with card technology - then withdrawing this quite simple form of money transfer will hasten the day when they can no longer be independent.

However, I read a statistic that may slow down the whole process. Cheques are used six times more often than on-line payments. Hurray! Today's Telegraph on-line