Department store John Lewis has taken a step away from accepting personal cheques with a trial in two of its branches.

From February 25, John Lewis will stop accepting cheques at its Cribbs Causeway and Edinburgh branches and only accept cash and card payments. Signage will go in-store from today to inform customers about the trial.

John Lewis manager, customer service, Andrew McMillan said: “We have undertaken customer research and have found that cheques have been declining in both usage and importance for some time. We are keen to take this opportunity to see if customers appreciate the faster service at the tills that we will be able to provide if we are only processing cash and card payments.”

John Lewis will evaluate the test after 12 weeks.

John Lewis is the latest retailer to seek to ban cheques. Tesco and Marks & Spencer both announced last month that they would ban cheques altogether, from February 25 and March 1, respectively. This follows other retailers’ bans on cheques, including Argos, Asda, Boots, WHSmith and Next.

Topics