Not long ago, one could say one had been "put through the wringer" without having to explain how water used to be squeezed out of the washing before it was hung on the line.
Equally, one could say one’s day was nothing to write home about without explaining how good news was shared on carefully crafted notes in the time before email, social media and text messages.
We don’t have a Kodak moment (unless we’ve just misjudged the impact of new technology); we dial a number without turning a dial; and we wind the car window without actually winding a chromed handle.
And if we say this editorial is adding its two cents’ worth — which it is — then we’d have to explain how two cents used to be worth something, albeit not enough to keep it in circulation.
These sayings survived even as the processes that educated them were lost to time, overtaken by new technology. And technology’s march may do the same to another: "The cheque is in the mail" — that oft-used phrase used by cash-strapped debtors — may soon be in the same idiomatic boat.
The excuse seldom worked when dealing with the Inland Revenue Department and the Accident Compensation Corporation but, from tomorrow, both will only accept cheques as payment in exceptional circumstances. "Customers"are instead directed to use internet banking or direct debit; to pay by credit card over the telephone or their websites, or to pay by cash or eftpos at Westpac.
IRD received more than 430,000 cheques last financial year, the largest number received by any public sector agency. ACC received about 25,000 cheques from business customers. Those numbers have been dropping by about 20% annually and are about 5% of payments received by both.
NZ Post, many service stations and myriad corner stores have already stopped accepting cheques for payment, further fuelling the downward trend in chequebook use over the decade.
The banks are keeping a watching brief but Government-owned Kiwibank is the first to pull the pin. From today,
it will not accept cheque deposits and will stop providing bank cheques, and it has warned its customers not to write cheques as it may not honour them. Customers should use other forms of electronic payment, just as all banks have encouraged us to do for the best part of the last decade.
It is almost certainly true the move to electronic banking has fuelled the demise of cheques, just as it provides the alternative now that paper payments begin to be consigned to the past.
We have had plenty of time to get used to the alternatives. Cash machines have been ubiquitous since the early 1980s, eftpos has been in New Zealand for three decades and online banking was introduced in the late 1990s. They have been around long enough to successfully displace many real-life bank tellers and real-life bank branches: the act of writing on a piece of paper never stood a chance.
The banks have been weighing up the increasingly unnecessary cost of processing cheques but there is a social cost in abandoning them, and not just for small businesses who may rely on actual pay cheques from conscientious customers.
We are well used to the old trope that older people are hit hardest when it comes to adopting electronic or online technologies. This is true of some, but not all: there are people who do not trust internet services, or may be reluctant — or unable — to learn a new way of doing things. The lack of digital literacy, high and variable data costs, language barriers and disability issues all make accessing what should be "easy" services, difficult.
It is worth noting the death of the cheque is symptomatic of the broad shift of services to online platforms. Passport, immigration and citizenship services are among many Govenment services to move wholly online, with many others — IRD included — developing their already significant web portals.
A Citizens Advice Bureau survey released this week found too many people are were left behind when services shifted, and that digital inclusion could improve with free access to computers in the community, education and free language assistance.
Community-focused education programmes, such as Kiwibank’s "tech teas" and workshops about internet banking, are important tools in the move from cheques but they cannot tackle the barriers only time and cheaper technology will topple for those who cannot afford the mobile phone or internet connections.
Losing cheques is just the start of the challenge.
