By Mario deSantis, December 15, 1999

Last week, I reported an incident on how the communication between banks and their customers can become confused and motivate additional service charges by the banks(1). The date of the cheque is an essential legal feature of the cheque, however, today fewer banks pay attention to this date and they prefer to batch all the received cheques in one bundle and cash them. If there is any problem in cashing such cheques, anonymous service charges are decided by the computer system and the customers pay. Banks do business using statistics, so if only a fraction of the customers realize of the computer system mistakes there is still plenty of gold to be made by the banks.

But things are changing(2), business is changing, and the business use of statistics against consumers is changing as well. In fact, money has become an image(3) travelling at the speed of light and pretty soon the business of banking will change to include this "new reality" and provide better and direct communication between banks, businesses and their clients. This morning, I came to know that the implementation of electronic cheques(4) is around the corner: just think, less banking mistakes, less service charges, and the possibility of immediate world wide clearing of cheques.

Endnotes

1. It is the system's fault: an incident with banking transactions, by Mario deSantis, December 9, 1999

2. Watch Television On Your Computer, by Timothy Shire, December 4, 1999

3. The New Economy and reflections on the meeting of August 10/98 with Timothy (Tim) Shire, by Mario deSantis, August 16/98

4. Checks take first steps onto Internet, by Lorrie Grant, USA TODAY, USA Tech Report 12/10/99- Updated 11:56 AM ET http://www.us= atoday.com/life/cyber/tech/ctg868.htm