The UK's First Electronic Cheque Book

Issue 573: 12 February 2024

The UK's First Electronic Cheque Book

Making payments and managing our finances on our iPhone and Android devices has become the norm - almost every bank in the UK now provides an app that increasingly meets all our payment and financial needs meaning that the need to visit a physical bank branch or an ATM is fast becoming something that we no longer need to do.

Back in 1996 things were very different - in this pre-smartphone era perhaps the king of what was then called a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) was the Psion 3. The Psion 3 was chunky, didn't have much in the way of memory, was limited in its functionality but you looked the business pulling this champion slab out in the middle of meeting.

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Psion 3 - an early Personal Digital Assistant (PDA)

Before we look at the details of the UK's first electronic cheque book trial from Lloyds Bank we need to understand what the for runner of a smartphone looked like and how it worked - here's a quick look at the Psion Series 3:

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The UK's First Electronic Cheque Book

Back in 1996 Lloyds Bank were doing their best to develop digital payments and launched a trial of an electronic cheque book using the most modern PDA of the time - the Psion 3.

After close to 30 years Lloyds' electronic cheque book trial has almost been forgotten but a Payments:Unpacked reader has provided details of Lloyds' early foray into digital banking - a piece of banking and payments history that is too fascinating not to share.

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Lloyds Electronic Cheque Book

Lloyds' idea was to present a blank electronic "cheque" on the screen of your Psion and you then typed in the payee, sort code, account number, added a reference and then "signed" the cheque with a password.

If you sent the "cheque" before 4pm then Lloyds beneficiaries would receive the funds same day and non-Lloyds beneficiaries would receive the funds in three days (via Bacs Direct Credit) - no Faster Payments in 1996!