Are cheques obsolete?
Image: Alistair MacRobert
Does ACC still accept cheques?
Are Cheques obsolete?
Technically no, they’re not – there’s still a number of places cheques can be used, but with more and more people using electronic banking it may not be long before cheques are only found in a museum.
ACC have jumped on the bandwagon and said they will no longer be completing refunds or accepting payments by cheque from March 2020.
They’ve said they only received about 25,000 cheques in the last financial year. That’s 25,000 cheques from approximately 534,930 businesses – 4.7% of businesses still pay by cheque, but according to ACC this number is declining.
Yes, it costs to process a cheque, then there’s postage, waiting for it to clear and the issue of bounced cheques. On the other hand, what about what works for the consumer? Especially where you have no choice but to pay for the service.
For a lot of businesses, this isn’t an issue – electronic banking in all its forms has been around for a while, but there are still some businesses and people that use cheques. My Grandmother was still going to the bank to cash a cheque into her 90’s and even though she had an EFTPOS card, she refused to use it because she didn’t understand it. She grew up during the wars in England – money was scarce and trade was done in cash – even the rent was collected in cash. She carried this with her throughout her life – if it wasn’t in cash in her hand it wasn’t real and it couldn’t be counted.
Bank payments to ACC
So should people be pushed into handing over their private bank account details to ACC just because it’s not convenient for them to accept cheques anymore? Regardless of what we think, it’s going to happen.
Your only option for a refund is to provide ACC with a bank account number – and the good news is we can do this for you. Just provide us with the following details:
Bank account name (i.e J Smith)
Bank account number
Refund only Yes/No
Please note the bank account can be different to the bank account you pay invoices from.
Any questions, get in touch – that’s what we’re here for.
Sue Walton, Manager - ManageACC
m 027 210 4918 e sue@managecompany.co.nz
