Can you survive without paper cheques?
 

The cost of printing cheques is so expensive in Canada. Can one survive without them? Paying hydro and other bills is easy. How about to pay for a plumbing repair or painter? Is cash the only answer?

Sign up for a President's Choice Financial acct (which is really run by CIBC). No fee accounts and free cheques.

Have not used a cheque in 17 months.

Plumbing / home repairs and painters are paid Cash. :P

Indeed, the cost of having cheques printed is a huge nuisance.

Many craftsmen accept CCs (typically MC and Visa only), but they don´t neccessarily like it.

Many people use Interac e-transfer for making rental payments / paying the babysitter etc. - afaik some banks charge a fee, but I don´t know which ones.

If you're a renter, you might find it useful to have cheques. Some landlords accept Interac E-transfers, but I think you'll find the majority do not. Also if you live in a condo you own, I think a lot of condo corporations only accept maintenance fees in the form of cheques or automated withdrawal from your bank account.

As a non-renter, I haven't used a cheque in years. All my bills can be paid online through my bank's website. If you start a new job, you can simply walk into a branch and they'll print you off a form with your direct deposit details for your employer. Haven't found a use for cheques since I stopped renting.

When I moved to Canada a couple of years back, I had to have my bank advisor give me a 101 on cheques. In 30 years in Europe, I had never had to use one and was amazed that such arcane means of payment still exist here, combined with very limited e-banking services for individuals paying individuals.

I rent and my landlord, as well as the odd craftsman, insist on cheques. I also get them from friends every now and then, and have to trek to the bank to deposit them. Oh, and I've had compensation cheques from both LH and UA in the last 12 months.

I can't wait for something like an IBAN to put an end to this disgrace.

It sure is a different world.:)

The only advantage of the Canadian system is that you don´t need to provide any personal information (such as bank account number etc.) if someone wants to pay you - but that´s about it IMO.

Some banks will allow you to send the cheque to the branch instead of having to deposit the cheque in person, but not all banks will do that.

I´ve seen a few ads from banks which offer customers to deposit cheques using an app on their smartphone - but I haven´t looked into that.

Yes, I've heard about that as well. Thanks for reminding me - about time I look into it! :o

How expensive is it to have checks printed?

Only my Chase account charges me $4.95 for I think 250 or 500 checks. Schwab and Wells Fargo give free checks.

in the past 2 years I've only written 1 check not for rent.

A ridiculous price --I think my teen aged son was charged over $22 to get some cheques printed when he open a teenager account.

I just looked on a website known for cost savings deals and some posters were saying their bank used to charge $25, but now charges $40 (for 200). A company called Davis+Henderson seems to be the main one used by Canadian chartered banks.

(PS-my bank charges me zero, but I write very few cheques per year...usually a gift to someone, or the odd home repair)

Most major banks charge $0.20-$1.00 per cheque depending on how many you order at once ($25-$35 per 100 cheques is quite common). Afaik some credit unions offer cheaper options, but I personally have little experience with credit unions. Some "premium" chequing accounts (with a higher monthly fee) also offer (a limited number of) free cheques.

I use both ING Direct and CIBC apps that have this feature. It is very convenient. The only problem I have found is when cheques are made payable to me and my spouse, then we can only deposit it into a joint account. Otherwise extremely convenient.

I have purchased personalized cheques from ASAP Cheques in the past year. They charged around $25 for a set of duplicating cheques that my D+H was going to charge me over $40.

arecane...not so....had you said flexible and rather sophisticated for the average joe...perhaps....but cheques as a means of payment has been around for thousands of years originating in bills of exchange to avoid wads of cash being carried around...or gold....

if you actually understand how they work (which almost no tellers do any more) they are very flexible in terms of being able to endorse (even pay to bearer) and using them down the line to pay other people etc.

in fact, it's that they can not be used for amounts over 10M in the corporate sphere at least in Canada that wires became more common in financing transactions but let me tell you, dealing with a 2 billion dollar certified cheque (yes, i have dealt with one...:D) on a closing versus fusing around with a wire transfer between two large corporate clients is WAY WAY easier. sadly, no cheques over 10M any longer so closings become a mess and it's hard to track wire transfers in real time.

cheques are going nowhere. they are valuable in many commercial situations.

in pretty simple day to day commercial transactions, sure, your cards do much of the lifting but there are good reasons why they will continue to exist.

Some accounts include the cost of printed cheques, at least they used to. I have some payments that have to be mailed in. However, the cheques in my collection are so old they can enter a bar with no i.d. At least I've used up the ones with the date section beginning with "19__".

I've never paid for a cheque (PC, TD). I use about one a month, on average, and occasionally a void one. When I opened my Amex account, I had to send them a cheque over $1, which they did cash. Then, Amex credited that $1 to my account. :-) But Canada Post employees were locked out. My cheque was stuck somewhere in the system, and I was travelling without any extras - it slowed my Amex application for over a month. They were unrelenting. :-(

A friend of mine has an account at RBC. She used to get three cheques a month for free. Now, she gets as many for free as she wants, but whenever one of her cheques is cashed, there is a $2 charge. Well, its RBC...