<waves?>
I'm in South Africa with work atm so don't get as much spare time as usual
basically cheques are a dying animal. IIRC they will be removed from service in another 5 years or so as they are expensive to process, slow ( you lot all demand instant transfers)and are a throwback to a time when banking was a much more paper based affair. its also costly to print and deliver securely so the sooner they go teh better for 95% of the world.... (yes, I'm sure some of you still use them and love them and will miss them yadda yadda its all teh greedy banks fault, bonuses will rise, etc etc
)
From a fraud perspective, if they get your book and guarantee card ( assuming 50 quid limit) then teh reduction reduces the risk by 250 quid, those with higher cheque guarantee limits gain even more.