Writing is on wall for cheques

Cheque books are disappearing as banks discover that one in 10 of their customers never use them, preferring plastic cards.

The slump in demand has led to one of Britain's biggest chequebook printers, De La Rue, selling off its Peterborough factory and closing down a second facility in Byfleet, Surrey, with the loss of 60 jobs.

Two years ago three billion debit card transactions overtook cheque business for the first time.

Banking experts forecast that the 12 million cheques written every day will decline by 1.5 billion a year within five years and cheques could disappear by the end of the next decade.