The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

SO, the good Governor of The Central Bank thinks cheques are redundant and in 2023 he will declare them a dinosaur.

When employees were paid cash or by cheque there were plus - about 25,000 chequing accounts identified to the middle class and more wealthy people – average Joe Bahamian dealt solely in cash and that was it.

Employers decided to go to transfer of pay cheques to employee bank accounts - wow! chequing accounts exploded to over 160,000 plus, but what the good Governor is missing is those accounts are active once a week when the pay cheque is withdrawn and cash taken – leaving the same honest-to-God cheque users mostly, as said middle class and more wealthy, using cheques — historically almost as old as currency - you don’t need a printed cheque format, just I promise to pay and the appropriate postage stamp it’s legal.

Consumers today used to an extent electronic transfer – a lot even the small salaried person debit cards and you see them making small purchases, I mean small, a few dollars - Credit cards if you wish to increase the amount of cash you have available.

There is absolutely no reason to delete cheques. They don’t cost the bank or the Central Bank a dime - printing and clearing are to the cost of the user. What is strange, remember all the bally-hoo about electronic clearing, $1 plus million - bush crack gone - very recently CIBC added to their now costly services forwarding scanned cheques you use, that has had to have a cost — you mean CIBC didn’t cheque what the cheque policy of the Central Bank was? Hard to swallow that.

It is totally illogical why The Central Bank plans to remove the use of cheques. The same group that used them before will continue to use them. Pensioners will be happy if they stay, as will a lot of businesses. Tracking payments is far easier with paper than electronically.

No, protect the right of over 25,000 living Bahamians - we want cheques to stay.

K FERNANDER

Nassau,

September, 2022.