31 August 2007
The number of cheques being written in the UK has halved in the last decade, the UK payments association APACS has revealed.
A new report into the use of cheques by UK consumers has found that the number of cheques written has decreased from two billion to one billion in the last ten years, with 2006 having the biggest decline in the volume of cheques, dropping by 8%.
Just 54% of all UK adults made payments via cheque in the last year, while only 47% of people received a cheque payment. Despite the downturn in the use of cheques, APACS states that they still remains popular for certain types of payments, with 23% of all cheque payments used to pay bills.
"Cheque use has really taken a tumble in the past decade as both consumers and businesses have increasingly made the move away from paper and opted for plastic and automated payments instead," Sandra Quinn, Director of Communications at APACS, said.
"Despite this we are not yet predicting the death of the cheque. Although volumes will continue to fall, we forecast that there will still be around 840 million cheques used in the UK in 2016 - if you placed these cheques end to end they would stretch around the world two and half times," she added.
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