Cheque guarantee card

Each bank would set a limit on the maximum amount of an individual cheque that could be guaranteed.

The guarantee only applied to cheques drawn on an account provided by the bank that issued the card, and could result in an overdraft with penalty interest on the cardholder.

Usage of the cheque guarantee scheme declined significantly during the 1990s with the introduction and wide use of debit cards.

In 2011, after many years of decline, the Payments Council ended the UK cheque guarantee system, leaving Ireland as the last country to operate a cheque guarantee card scheme.

[2] As of 2009[update] the scheme was only used to guarantee 7% of the 1.4 billion cheques issued each year,[3] a figure which itself was declining due to the popularity of other means of payment such as debit cards.