Cheque Payment Phased Out At Sainsbury's

Wed, 18 Jul 2007

UK supermarket chain Sainsbury's will no longer accept cheques as a method of payment, becoming the latest British retailer to do so, due to the increasing usage and popularity of debit and credit cards instead.

Customers will have until the August 1 to purchase their goods using cheques in the retailer's 800 nationwide stores .

According to the Wal-Mart owned supermarket there are too few people using cheques nowadays and paying with them takes up too much time, plus the majority of consumers use debit cards to pay for their goods .

Other firms in the UK have opted to phase out cheques including Asda, Morrisons, Boots, WH Smith and Shell, while the London Underground stopped taking them from tube commuters on 15 July.

A spokeswoman for Sainsbury's said: "Like other retailers they are being used less and less by our customers . The percentage of its 17 million weekly customers who still use them are very, very, small."

But leaflets being handed out to shoppers at Sainsbury stores across the country state that the continued level of cheque fraud is the main reason for the decision.