(Asia) – Following a decision by Euro banks not to issue any more eurocheques from the start of this year, cheques are going to disappear completely as part of a reorganisation in cross border European payment transactions.The withdrawal is part of a program to implement cashless payment transactions, with banks wanting to treat all payments within Europe as “domestic” payments come 2010, with some analysts seeing Asia as a possible mirror.
These future cashless funds transfers will concentrate on card payments, credit transfer, direct debit and possibly also electronic internet transactions, assuming standardised forms for transfers and debits throughout the EU are implemented.
It will also be important to convince Europe’s 500 million bank customers to use the new standards, such as new bank account numbers and bank codes.