The cheque looks set to become obsolete by 2020, with usage currently falling by about eight per cent a year - a trend which is expected to accelerate

Almost half of people say they use them less frequently than they did three years ago, with 14 per cent saying they now never use them.

One third of 1,000 current account holders said they would use cheques less during the next three years, according to research for the Halifax Extras Current Account.

During 1990, more cheques were written to pay for goods and services than all other types of payment or cash withdrawals put together.

But by 2000 the picture had changed dramatically with non-cheque transactions outnumbering those made by cheques by four to one.

And despite almost 12 million cheques being written every day, plastic card payments now outnumber cheques two to one.

A total of 4.8 billion plastic transactions were carried out during 2002, with just 2.4 billion cheques being written.

If the current trend continues, the number of payments made by cheque looks set to fall to 1.5 billion a year within the next five years.

About 59 per cent of people said they use debit cards at least once a week, with 15 per cent using them at least once a day.

Sixty-four per cent of current account holders said they used cash most days for goods and services.

Rob Devey, head of banking at Halifax, said: "Cash and debit cards are clearly the currency of today."

Wednesday September 17, 2003