Australians already lose billions of dollars a year to online scams and electronic theft – and that’s only the reported losses.

At a time when the need for safe financial transactions is greater than ever, the Australian government has announced that it intends to abolish cheques - taking away the safest and most reliable way to make large or remote transactions (and the only user non-digital way to make large or remote transactions), severely disadvantaging people who do not use online banking and leaving some people financially stranded, forcing people to expose accounts containing potentially large sums of money to the vagaries of the internet and opening more transactions to scamming, making large or remote transactions difficult for many people (and technically unreliable in rural areas), increasing the cost of many large or remote transactions due to surcharges, likely reducing donations to charities, causing problems for accounts requiring more than one signature to make payments from, and causing large or remote transactions to fail during outages and power failures.

Cheque processing has already been simplified and streamlined, and cheque transactions are now electronically transmitted between financial institutions, so there is no need to discontinue cheque use.

You never know when you may need to use a cheque.    If the financial system can accommodate an increasing diversity of emerging payment systems, then it can accommodate cheques.

Say NO! to more scam losses, to more fees and surcharges, to locking people into electronic transactions, and to the abolition of the safest and most reliable way to make large or remote transactions.

Please sign to Retain Cheques as a payment method.

Thank you.