Payment Processing for eCommerce



April 2020 - Technology



APayment Processing for eCommerce is increasingly being carried out smartphones, sending payment for services has never been easier. Furthermore, money sent will arrive with recipients within minutes and just a few ‘taps’. So is it really any wonder that cheque payments are on a downward spiral and have moved aside for digital payment processing for eCommerce?

Payment Processing for eCommerce

Cheques cashed in the UK:

  • 1990: 4 billion
  • 2008: 1.4 billion
  • 2015: 558 million
  • 2016: 477 million
  • 2025 forecast: 237 million

Cheque use in 2015

  • 558 million cheques used in UK.
  • 1.5 million cheques cleared a day (with a value of £1.7 billion).
  • Two out of three businesses believed they would encounter problems if there were not the facilities to write cheques.
  • Almost 60% of UK businesses said they had received payments by cheque in the past month.

The above figures were taken from the Cheque and Credit Clearing Company (C&CCC) – who also have a helpful cheque checker that you can check your cheques with (perhaps whilst pondering how much wood would a woodchuck chuck).

“Please note that we no longer accept cheques as a means of payment”

Some charities have protested against the phasing out of cheques, saying that many people aren’t comfortable with making digital payments. Additionally. they argue that paper transactions shouldn’t be eradicated until alternatives can be agreed on by all.

It would seem the Government agrees with this, as it has since publicly stated that cheques can only start to be phased out if sufficient alternatives are in place. Also acknowledging cheques are still used extensively by tradesmen, charities, and small businesses.

From this October the cheque clearing system will be changing, meaning that by the end of 2018 cheques should clear by the end of the next working day. Currently, cheques can take up to six working days to clear, so this is a hugely positive step forward.Of course, people who do not wish to use this technology would still be able to bank their cheques the current way.

Cyber fraud is something that people are increasingly wary of, and a lot of people don’t see what’s wrong with just popping a good, ‘old-fashioned’ cheque in the post. It’s what they’ve always done and they have no intention of changing. Refusing cheques means you are alienating this population, which could prove costly to your business.

As well as dealing with B2C and B2B, we also work with charities and a lot of their funds come from cheque donations. Fiona Gledhill, Project Manager from the C&CCC says that their market research found that 86% of charities say that cheques are important to them and they wrote and received them on a regular basis.


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