Woman in bank row over depositing £900 HMRC cheque

A woman has urged a banking group to "not forget" rural communities after a struggle to deposit a cheque.

Annabel Yates, from Cornwall, received a £900 cheque from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), but could not deposit it online as it did not have perforated edges and would not scan.

She took it to her local post office but was told Lloyds Banking Group customers could no longer pay in cheques through the Post Office after the service was stopped in January. Yates said she faced a round trip of 75 miles (120km) to Okehampton or of 94 miles (150km) to Truro, to visit a branch.

Lloyds said customers could deposit cheques through its app, visit any branch, or use a freepost deposit service.

Yates, from Crackington Haven, said she wanted the bank to "reconsider their policy" as she believed it "disenfranchises the rural population".

She said: "I think the bank's theory is everything could be done on an app and that's just not always the case.

"It's very backwards thinking."

She said she was told about the freepost option but "did not want a cheque in the post for such a large amount of money when you are not sure it would actually reach its destination".

She added: "Back in the day, Lloyd's ethos was to make banking easy. I think this is a reversal of that."

Lloyds Banking Group, which includes Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland, said industry figures showed cheques had been in long-term decline and were used for only 0.1% of all UK payments in 2024.

Joanna Bickersteth, postmistress at Marshgate Post Office, near Boscastle, said Yates's case was not an anomaly, with many customers "frustrated" by the loss of service.

She said cheques were still "used a great deal" and she still processed them regularly, but the change in January had reduced "the facilities available to customers by taking away the post office element".

A new banking hub in Bude could also "not cash in cheques as it was a Post Office facility", she said.

The Lloyds Banking Group said it updated the terms and conditions on some accounts last year and let customers know they could no longer pay cheques in at the Post Office.

It said: "Customers can use our app to pay in cheques, visit any Lloyds, Halifax or Bank of Scotland branch, or get in touch with us about our freepost cheque deposit service."

Follow BBC Cornwall on X, Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to spotlight@bbc.co.uk.