The announcement – made in 2009 – was criticised by consumer groups and charities, who said the decision would have an adverse effect on small business and elderly people.
The council’s chairman Richard North admitted that his organisation had made mistakes and had failed to represent the concerns of more vulnerable users of cheques.
However Mr North insisted that the plans are “not set in stone”, adding that the council will delay the phasing out of cheques if alternatives are not in place.
“We have not made a decision to abolish cheques. That decision will not be made until 2016 at the very earliest,” he told the committee.
In April, the UK Payments Council started seeking consumer input for its blueprint of the UK payments market which proposed to phase out the cheques by 2018, “once acceptable alternatives had been devised.”
Read more about the story here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/…00/9513110.stm
