The end of cheques
THE end of cheques is the end of an era. Are we really sure we wish to do away with the safety factor of words as well as numbers to denote the sum required?
Are our signatures going to become a thing of the past? And our names?
We are now known by numbers and each of us has a collection of them to remember. This can cause problems for us oldies.
Having to remember a sequence of numbers for this and another sequence for that is a strain on our ageing minds.
I was taught to recite my full name at a very early age. It is safely with me to the end of my life.
Most of my friends of my age seem to manage their mobile phone, a skill I am still hoping to master one day, but I notice that most of my friends, when asked, cannot tell the number of their phone!
Some years ago I was introduced to a card and the ATM. As I reside near the central business district of Suva, I do find this a handy way of accessing “real money”.
However, I have more than once encountered a big problem.
In times of stress, as, for instance, when my husband was dying, I could not find the required numbers and consequently lost the card and had to borrow from a friend and later get a replacement from the bank with a new number to memorise!
But ATMs are not readily available in many places and require one to have a bank account and sufficient resources.
As I have said before now, I buy my vegetables from the Suva market every Saturday morning. Have those who wish to replace “real money”, ie cheques, and cash, thought about the rural folk, women and men, who sit with their $2, $3, $5, or sometimes $1(!) plates of vegetables that they have grown or fruit they have gathered from the trees?
We, the shoppers, have saved our coins and our small notes to make these simple but vital transactions that provide us with food and the rural folk with some “real money” to spend on necessities before they return home.
I am fortunate to have a laptop and can manage emails. It is a relief to receive by email my monthly accounts for the necessities, electricity and land line telephone and the three monthly water account, and I thank MaxValue for accepting my monthly cash payment and arranging the necessary transactions.
Yes, some modern ways of doing things are good, but my husband could write his cheques, put them in an envelope and send them off by post. But in recent years we find the Post Office morphing into a stationery shop since fewer people have a use for the postage system.
I do hope that those with the power to make the huge changes to the way we buy and sell in everyday life are not forgetting us “ordinary” folk.
Please do not send us back to the days of bartering for our daily needs.
TESSA MACKENZIE
Suva