DURBAN - By 1 January 2021, individual consumers and businesses will no longer be able to cash cheques in South Africa.
A joint announcement by the SARB, FSCA, PASA and BASA confirmed that the issuing and acceptance or collection of cheques will cease from 31 December 2020.
Overall, cheques payments in South Africa contribute less than 0.1 percent of the total ecosystem in South Africa as customers adapt to digital platforms.
The end of cheques is a historic moment for South Africa, according FNB Chief Executive Jacques Celliers.
He said, “Cheques have been one of the most treasured payment methods by some customers and symbolised a different era of innovation. As a result, their necessary discontinuation is a nostalgic moment for us and our customers, however, we believe the future of payments is even more exciting for all of us".
“We issued our last cheque book in September this year but the journey to migrate our customers to safer and efficient digital payments methods has been running for years. As a platform bank, we’re availing a significant amount of resources and support to ensure that customers have a range of efficient payment alternatives,” added Celliers.
The decision to discontinue cheques considered several factors including a lengthy processing period; fraud perpetrated through the issuing of cheques; cheques as an expensive payment instrument; the restricted acceptance of cheques; declining usage; limited education and protection for the consumer; and ageing interbank cheque processing infrastructure.
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