When the finance industry announced that cheques would be phased out by 2018 there was uproar.

Such was the outpouring of opposition that two years later, the Payments Council was forced to reverse its decision and promise to keep the popular paper payment slips for as long as they were needed.

But Money Mail readers today sound the alarm over fears that firms are once again trying to kill off the humble cheque.

Lockdown restrictions caused usage to plummet in the pandemic, and now a surge in bank branch closures means customers are running out of places to deposit them.

It comes after savings institution NS&I tried to stop posting its treasured Premium Bond prize cheques, only to retreat after a Money Mail campaign.

Last week, Money Mail Editor Victoria Bischoff raised concerns in her column that cheques were increasingly being viewed as obsolete by tech-savvy individuals.

Since then, we have been inundated with emails and letters from people who regularly use them to pay local businesses, donate to charities and send as gifts to children and grandchildren. 

Some people write more than a dozen cheques a month — and many say they are reassured by how much safer it is to pay this way, rather than online where money can disappear at the click of a button, or by keeping lots of cash in their homes.

Cheque usage peaked in 1990, when four billion were written, according to banking trade body UK Finance.

In 2010, more than a billion cheques were paid in. But this fell to 185 million during the pandemic in 2020, a 32 per cent decline on the previous year.

Barclays says the average number of cheques written by its personal customers is down by 44 per cent compared with before Covid-19 struck in early 2020.

Today, none of the High Street providers offers a chequebook to customers as standard.

Those who want one must make a request.

Some new mobile banks, such as Monzo and Starling Bank, do not offer a chequebook at all.

Yet despite making up just 1 per cent of all payments, cheques remain vital to thousands of people.

Landlord Anthony Gianni, for instance, was grateful he had his chequebook to fall back on when repaying his mortgage last October.

Anthony, 66, had tried to send £176,000 electronically to his lender's HSBC account.

But after checking the name and account details, staff at his local Santander branch told him they couldn't confirm that it belonged to the mortgage firm.

Anthony, who lives in Sunbury-on-Thames, Surrey, says: 'They said I could still make the transfer but if it didn't go to the right account, they might not be able to get the money back. 

There was no way I could go through with it when the risk was on me.' The only way he could make sure the money went to the lender was to send a cheque.

He adds: 'It may have taken a few more days to clear but at least I knew that only Rosinca Mortgages could cash my cheque.'

Santander says accounts may not be verified if the name does not match the account number or where there has been a significant mistake in either.

Corporate accounts may not be approved either as not all are set up for the Confirmation of Payee security check.

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