Some exciting things taking place

As the summer comes to and end (well here in Scotland it certainly is) there have been a few things of note to report this week.

Cheques. Now some of you older bankers out there will, I am sure remember doing the debit clearing at the beginning of and end of the day. The daily balance was fun was it not? Checking each cheque to ensure that it was drawn properly. Yes, those were the days boys and girls. But not anymore!!!

A new APACS report into cheques shows:
- In 2006 cheque volumes declined at their fastest-ever rate
- Fewer than half of all adults received a personal cheque in the last year
- Cheques now represent just one in ten of all non-cash transactions
The number of cheques written by individuals has halved from 2.0 billion to 1.0 billion in the last ten years, according to a report launched on 30 August 2007 by APACS, the UK payments association.

Another interesting fact to emerge this week was that the Bank of England said yesterday that it had acted as lender of last resort for the second time this month, supplying almost £1.6 bn via it's standing facility. This is the 14th time this year that the facility has been used. I am sure that all students remember that lender of Last Resort is one of the functions of the Bank of England. It has been suggested that problems with the CREST settlement system may have been to blame this week.


Well what an overload of information that was and on a Friday too. No bank holiday this weekend in the UK I am afraid.Raymond is still on annual leave. I am sure that he is missing us all. I wonder if he is looking in at the blog while he is away. Hello there Raymond if you are.

Enough of this Friday morning madness. I wish you all a good weekend and whether you are Barbecuing in Balerno, Curling in Currie, Driving in Dalkeith or Singing in Sighthill
Have a good one.

Michael