The item that put this on everyone's radar was the announcement by the UK Payments council back in December. “The Payments Council Board has agreed to set a target date of 31st October 2018 to close the central cheque clearing. Over the next nine years the Payments Council will work to ensure that where alternatives already exist they are promoted and explained; and where innovation and new options are required, they are put in place.” (www.paymentscouncil.org.uk/payments_plan/-/page/856/) The other driver is that cheques are expensive to process (this is not just the bank charge, but all the manual handling and auditing costs) I have talked to agents in the past when deploying e-planning systems, and they ranged from nuetral to positive about card payments, but I should note that this was from agents who turned up to be briefed about new electronic facilities, and hence may not be a truly representative sample.
