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Left handed cheque books

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The use of cheques is declining rapidly as cards of all types take over but we do still get a lot of enquiries from people complaining about the difficulty of using a standard cheque book if you are left-handed.   The problem is that the binding is normally on the left and it is difficult to hold the cover open and write left-handed at the same time without a lot of contortion.   It is even harder to write anything on the cheque stubbs as your hand is sitting on top of the binding and it gets more difficult as you get further through the book and the binding is thicker and thicker!

We ran a campaign on this many years ago to try to get the banks to produce a left-handed version of their cheque books, with the binding on the right.   We did have some success and some of the banks did actually produce left-handed cheque books!   The position has changed over the years so we have just done a bit of research and come up with the following:


  • The following UK banks and Building Societies have been reported as having left handed cheque books available if requested (we think only for personal accounts, not business accounts):HSBC
    Barclays
    Royal Bank of Scotland
    Alliance and Leicester
    NatWest

  • American banks apparently have "duplicate" cheques with each check backed with a no-carbon counterfoil so you automatically get a copy of the cheque as you write it.     The perforation is along the top so there is not really a "right-handed/left-handed" issue.

  • Apparently it is standard in France to have cheque books with perforations along the top as well.


If you know any more about this or know of other institutions that produce left-handed cheque books please add them as comments below.

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Comments 13

  1. Brian Evans
    Just had a message from Barclays. No more lefty cheque books
  2. Meridel Thompson
    Lloyds do them, or did. There was an article in the magazine Options between Oct 87 and Apr 88 stating all banks did them.As 1 of the 10% normal people I thought it was brilliant my ex-husband thought it was witchcraft and couldn't use it.
    I still have the current Lloyds one, issued when they were Lloyds TSB - I'm ex-TSB IT division btw.
  3. Cliff
    I actually designed and produced the first left handed cheque book for Lloyds bank in 1994.
  4. Jane gale
    I had a left handed cheque book through Natwest for over 20 years,recently changed to Lloyds & now have one with them, brilliant!
  5. Candice
    In the US, our personal checks are commonly offered with a top perforation - but this is not true for business checks which is why I am online searching (in vain) for some help. I have a standard right-handed binder of checks for my business and I find it miserably uncomfortable to use each month when I need to write checks. I only write about 5 a month, so getting a computer program for it is not cost effective, but SERIOUSLY, why is it so hard? Print the checks with the stub on the right side (instead of the left) and then the checks can be bound for Lefties. So simple. If someone were to make it, I'd be fast to buy it!
  6. Sally
    Halifax do as well.
  7. Edward
    Great article.
    I usually pull the check fRom the book to write, and I begin writing out in reverse.
    My name, the date,$, written $, pay to. No smearing that way.
    Regards,
    ED
  8. Stuart Lloyd
    I've used a left-handed cheque-book for several years now, and whenever I serve a left-hander where I work, I recommend they enquire at their bank.
    Many people I work with think of left-handed chequebooks like the comedy left-handed wrench, as if it they don't exist, so I have on occasion brought my chequebook in to work so people can see that they do indeed exist!
  9. Rosie Bryant-Moore
    Lloyds TSB offers them as well :-)
  10. Elizabeth
    Years ago the Royal Bank of Scotland sent me cheque books for lefthanders. I was very happy to use them, and amused to see how the righthanded teller fumbled to remove it after stamping the cheque butt. It was all back to front for them. Elizabeth
  11. Elaine Irmak
    I haven't asked,but my Nationwide chequebook, even though the cheques are the normal way and you have to lean against the stub when getting to the end of the book, the actual stubs are written so the binding opens at the top when writing so you have no problems with writing the stub out.
  12. Sue
    Lloyds have provided left handed cheque booksfor years. I think they were one of the first. However, only for private accounts.
    1. Rosie Bryant-Moore
      Sorry, Sue, didn't read your comment until after I'd posted!

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