I'M an old-fashioned kind of gal and still a bit of a luddite, so I've not entirely bought into the 'cashless society' yet. I still like writing out proper cheques for stuff and putting them in the post with a real letter. So sue me.

If I was a customer of National Irish Bank I'd be a bit grumpy. They're doing away with cheques, in the latest in a line of actions that used to be called customer service but now are just annoyances for staff.

The Danes are a streamlined lot. They probably can't understand why we Irish like the feel of real money, the clink of coins rattling in our pocket and the peeling off of crisp notes, or even papery crumpled ones. It's a control thing. If we can see it, we have it. It's also a bit showy-off. We're like that. Some of us aren't mad about every single transaction being recorded in the bowels of a machine and believe that cash is king.

You're more likely to get a bargain or a discount if you flash the notes at a salesman, rather than wave your credit card. And you wouldn't dream of paying the window cleaner with plastic, would you?

But the Danish-owned bank wants us all to be click, click, click -- punching in numbers seamlessly; giving orders to the laptop; doing their job from the kitchen and letting the computers do the talking.

Oh, they still have branches - 28 of them, but now, if you want to cash a cheque (and who doesn't these days?) they're going to send you to the post office to do it! That includes their own, by the way -- which you can still write, but can't lodge. Crazy, isn't it?

NIB stopped taking in cash a few years ago, so customers are a bit stymied if they're paid that way and can't lodge it.

They're citing tiger raids and the safety issues of handling cash, which is a watery argument. Passing the buck onto post offices which have had more than their fair share of similar attacks, some fatal, and have far less security than the average bank branch is not entirely fair either.

In truth, NIB simply want rid of anything that is expensive to operate and cheques are one. They have to pay for them to be cleared through a central processing system and they don't want to.

Counting wads of cash shovelled over the counter by the secretary of a local small business during her lunch break is another. So they simply stop doing it. The post office will be closed for lunch, so what is she to do? Her safety comes second as she wanders back to the office wondering how on earth one puts their company's cash in the bank these days.

Society is moving inexorably towards doing without cash. NIB is the first out of the box, but the others will follow. I was alarmed to see a sign up in my local supermarket that it no longer accepted cheques for payment. I queried it -- they were bouncing apparently and it's a hassle when it happens.

Laser doesn't bounce -- you can embarrass the customer right then and there if it doesn't go through. Ho hum.

The new debit cards, already in use by Ulster Bank and PTSB and which will be brought in by AIB and Bank of Ireland later this year are being lauded as "contactless".

You wave it in front of a scanner at the checkout and hey presto -- you don't even have to make eye contact with the shop assistant as you pay for your coffee and newspaper. The way of the future?

Probably, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.