INDEPENDENT traders in Oxfordshire say they will be hit hard when banks stop guaranteeing cheques next month.

Cheques will no longer ensure payment from June 30, meaning many business owners are bracing themselves for the extra cost of installing debit card terminals.

Susie Bond, owner of the Busy Baskets garden centre, in Wantage Road, Wallingford, said it would cost her about £1,000 a year to rent a chip and pin machine.

She said: “It’s the rental of the machine that is sticking in my craw. I’m being dictated to by the banks.

“And if I go to cash only, I would suffer very badly. The banks are holding us all to ransom.”

She added: “It’s hard enough as it is.”

Her son Jonothan, 19, said half of all payments they currently took were cheques.

The Payments Council – which sets payment strategies in the UK – gave two years’ notice of the change in 2009.

Many businesses are expected to stop accepting cheques once the change comes in, for fear of being given cheques which bounce.

Market trader Martin Eldridge, who sells sweets in Witney, Abingdon and Chipping Norton, said his business would suffer if he could not accept cheques.

He said: “It’s certainly not going to help us. I have looked at card machines but they’re so expensive.

“It’s another blow to our business and another nail in the coffin.”

Graham Jones, of Oxford city centre traders’ group Rox, said the move was likely to have a bigger impact in remote areas with fewer cash machines.

He added: “It’s the very small independent retailers that may find they might have to fork out at a time when all are feeling the pinch anyway.

“But in the past year most business owners have bitten the bullet, so to speak, and moved on.”

John Partington, director of the Oxford Covered Market Traders’ Association, added: “I don’t think I have had a cheque for four months, so I don’t think it will make a difference.

“If it affects anyone, it will affect the older people, as they’re the only ones who use cheques. I certainly will not be crying over the demise of cheques.”

Last year only seven per cent of cheques banked were guaranteed. After June 30, cheques can still be used but there will be no guarantee of payment.

Michelle Whiteman, a spokesman for the Payments Council, said: “The system is no longer fit for purpose.

“We felt it would be in everyone’s best interests to manage the demise in a co-ordinated fashion.

“This does not spell the end of cheques, as customers can still use cheques, just without the guarantee.”