Asda does away with cheques

Supermarket chain Asda is to stop accepting cheques in a number of UK stores as more people are paying by card, it claims.

Twenty-one stores within the M25 will pilot the cash-or-cards scheme for 12 weeks to see how customers react.

An ASDA spokeswoman told silicon.com: "Less than two per cent of customers pay by cheque. It takes time to pay by cheque, especially when people are queuing, so this is about giving people the best service possible. It tends to be the same customers who pay by cheque."

According to research from Apacs, the voice of the banking industry, cheque usage is declining rapidly. The peak year of the cheque was 1990 when 11 million were written every day. By 2004 that number had halved to six million a day, and Apacs predicts that in 2014 just 3.5 million will be written every day.

Apacs said in 2004 the amount of money spent on cards exceeded that spent in cash.

Shell, the oil company, abolished the use of cheques in its retail petrol stations last year.