The Payments Council is due to decide whether to abolish the national cheque clearing system, a move which would effectively make all cheques redundant. The change would be phased in over several years and completed by 2018.

Despite growing reliance on debit cards, almost 4 million cheques are written every day in Britain. However, this is still two-thirds less than two decades ago, and numbers are expected to continue to decline, dropping to 1.6 million by 2018.

The move is likely to anger many people, charities warned, particularly older people who tend to prefer cheques to plastic cards and who are less likely to use online banking to do electronic transfers.

Andrew Harrop, head of public policy at the charity Age Concern and Help the Aged, said: “Many older people rely on cheques as their main form of payment and will be very worried about how they will manage if they are withdrawn.

“Without cheques, we are very concerned people will be forced to keep large amounts of cash in their home, leaving them vulnerable to theft and financial abuse.”

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