Sending cheques into history

It had to happen sometime.
Kiwibank has announced it will neither issue nor honour cheques as from February 28, next year. Cheques are out and, as far as the Kiwibank decision makers are concerned, digital is in.

If you are older or computer-free and have no desire to own a digital device and learn how to use it, then tough. Find another bank. That's the attitude.
To be fair, banks around the world are dropping cheques in favour of internet banking, forcing the less technologically capable to learn a digital lifestyle, get left behind or explore alternative options in the banking market. Kiwibank is just the latest to adopt this stance. It's going to affect a lot of people.

KiwiBank has justified it with percentages, saying less than 1 per cent of Kiwibank payments are made by cheque. That may not sound like much, but convert that into actual transactions and it's still an awful lot of banking activity. All of those people are either going to have to learn a new way of banking or find a bank that still uses cheques. I guarantee many will choose the latter.

There's no denying that on-line banking is fast and efficient. Many of us choose to bank this way and we like it.
It's also fraught with peril. There are people "out there" who make a living from hacking into banking systems and stealing money, one way or another.
We know they succeed, because we hear about it all the time.

All of us who inhabit the cyber world and use it for financial transactions run the risk of falling prey to one or more of these digital criminals. If they strike, we don't have the luxury of cancelling a cheque before it is cashed. Money removed from your digital account is gone forever, and there's no time to do anything about it.

We are also subject to all the things that can go wrong with a computerised system —there are many and they can be catastrophic. That's why "crash" is such a dramatic word.
But, Kiwibank sees digital banking as a mark of inevitable progress, and everyone has to get on board.

Have they discussed this with NZ Post? The postal service is already suffering from diminishing traffic, and to remove lucrative posted cheques from the equation is to inflict further serious damage.

But, consider the alienated customer. Not part of the cyber system, they have gone without electronic devices (PCs, phones, laptops, tablets) because they have been able to live their lives without them. Suddenly their bank — the one they support because it's a New Zealand institution — tells them to get up to date or get left behind. Those of us who see internet banking as a convenience might struggle to empathise with people who see it as a major INconvenience, but consider the easy to understand logistics.
Who's going to pay for the device they never wanted in the first place? They are not cheap — neither the device nor the contract with a provider — and buying and maintaining one on a pension will not be easy.
Who's going to train them in the use of their device? The bank? Not on your Nelly, not personally. The job of Kiwibank staff is to generate profits, not help their customers. Instead, Kiwibank uses the money they make from their customers to support Stepping Up, a community-based training system available in some parts of the country, but not all, in fact, not even most.

Most corporate technological assistance in New Zealand is aimed at families with children under the age of 18. That's where cheap or free internet contracts are directed, but the older age group relies on volunteers, mostly of a similar age, who try to help their contemporaries get on line. It should be a voluntary option, but Kiwibank is making the expense and education compulsory, unless they want to go through the inconvenience of changing banks.

Good move Kiwibank. Your latest ad says "We didn't set out to be a bank: we set out to change banking." Only one half of that statement is even partly true. The other half is a blatant lie. You set out to be a bank: hence the name! But changing banking by becoming inaccessible to older people or those unable to afford or access on line technology is hardly change worth bragging about.

Yahoo News has declared China has solved a mystery by sourcing material from the Moon's mantle, having landed a craft on the "farm" side of the Moon. There, apparently amongst fields of legumes and barley, in the shade of a big, red barn with grain silos attached, they went hunting for rocks, and evidently found some.
If only the Apollo missions had landed elsewhere, they might have discovered the Moon had long been populated by agricultural colonists.