Paying in cheques via banking apps

[butchstewie]

I had to pay in a cheque that DVLA sent me. How quaint in 2026.

Anyway my banking app lets me scan cheques. No problem I thought as I have a modern iPhone with a pretty dogs bks camera how difficult can this be?

I think I must have had to have about 50 different goes with the app telling me to move left move right move up move down and repeatedly telling me it couldn't get a suitable photo then eventually it showed what looked like a black and white fax quality "image" of the cheque.

Am I missing something here? I'm assuming this is something to do with banking standards as I can't for the life of me work out why they would render it down to that kind of garbage quality rather than a full high res scan?

[Arrivalist]

I wondered if, like the ones you get from national savings for premium bonds, that these might be warrants rather than cheques which cannot be paid by the app. However, Google says it’s for these reasons:

a DVLA cheque is failing to scan or process in a banking app, it is usually due to one of the following reasons:

Missing or Unreadable Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR) Line: Some users report that certain government or DVLA refund cheques lack a clear sort code and account number sequence at the bottom, or fail the app's optical character recognition scan.

Bank App Limitations: Not all banking apps support mobile cheque deposits (for example, Nationwide historically restricted some in-app deposits or had limits), or your bank may have specific value limits that require manual branch processing.

Strict Security and Validation: Automated app scanners reject cheques with faint text, smudges, or damaged borders, which can occasionally happen with batch-printed government payouts

[zb]

I don't have an answer to your question, I experienced a similar issue.

I renewed my driving licence yesterday, and signed up for the DVLA portal thing. As part of the ID checks they did a face scan via my phone, as you say, the image rendered looked like an 80s a-ha video. For a few seconds I thought my phone camera was effed, until it accepted it.

It also wouldn't accept my debit card for payment for some reason. I used it just before, and fine again this morning. DVLA computer said no, had to use the credit card, which was clear until that.

[Sheepshanks]

Haven't done it for a while but the NatWest one was a complete nightmare, and proved impossible even after much back and forth with NatWest. Ended up depositing them at the post office.

I was trying to pay in a series of cheques from Petplan and I did wonder if they'd designed them to be awkward as they had a kind of foil seal on them.

[Alorotom]

Curious - ive used the same process with Starling a good few times in 2026 and not had any issues at all - wonder if something has changed in the background now (thinking if there has been some increased fraud levels etc.)?

[98elise]

I've had no issue with Lloyds, using an android phone.

[butchstewie]

Arrivalist said:

I wondered if, like the ones you get from national savings for premium bonds, that these might be warrants rather than cheques which cannot be paid by the app. However, Google says it s for these reasons:

Hmm you might be onto something with the "warrant" thing.

It looks like a cheque but it is indeed a perforated tear-ff "thing" on the bottom of the DVLA letter so perhaps its that.

All I know is an iPhone 17 Pro Max has a pretty damned good camera on it so something seems off when I'm being told 50 times it can't get a clear picture of the cheque - unless it doesn't actually think it's a cheque - though that doesn't explain the 1997 OCR grade scan it seemed to finally settle on

[Russet Grange]

Barclays seems fine, I pay in cheques regularly. It used to be awful though.

[LastPoster]

zb said:

I

It also wouldn't accept my debit card for payment for some reason. I used it just before, and fine again this morning. DVLA computer said no, had to use the credit card, which was clear until that.

Do you bank with Santander?

There was an issue yesterday, my son tried to pay for work on his car at a garage. The payment kept getting declined. Apple Pay, contactless, chip and PIN and manually keying in the details all failed. He then asked me to pay and I found I couldn’t even open the App to move some money to my current account to pay for him.

We use the garage a lot so the guy knew we were good for the money and said pay when it working again

[wolfracesonic]

‘Now take a picture of the back’, oh fk off. ‘We’re checking your cheque’, fking comedian as well are we!

[Slashmb]

I had a similar thing with a cheque on my Tide banking app. I took the photo of the front of the cheque and it looked like a fax quality image. I tried retaking it about a dozen times but then just clicked next and it appeared like a regular photo and was accepted.

Maybe just let it run through the full process regardless of the image quality and see what happens.

[ferret50]

DVLA are very strange

They are happy to take a card payment but will only issue the cheque/warrant thingie for a refund.

Post Office is almost as difficult, will not accept either T212 or Nationwide debit cards, only Santander debit caed will do. Then Santander take three days to proccess the damn thing!

[Soloman Dodd]

With my bank - Lloyds, I just stick the cheque with my account number on the back in an envelope and post it off to their FREEPOST address.

[butchstewie]

Soloman Dodd said:

With my bank - Lloyds, I just stick the cheque with my account number on the back in an envelope and post it off to their FREEPOST address.

This is Lloyd’s and that’s fine I’m in town often enough.

I just thought this would be easier.

2026 and apps and all that.

[djohnson]

I’m with NatWest and use this feature frequently, I’ve always managed to make it work, I find the lighting is key, well lit but avoiding shadows falling in the shot seems to generate the quickest acceptable photo, The photo is shows you as a record of the transaction does look like something printed in about 1983 and then faxed, transaction always fine though.

[the-norseman]

I've had to do the same recently, Barclays took about 3 or 4 scans and then it was fine.

[Glassman]

Russet Grange said:

Barclays seems fine, I pay in cheques regularly. It used to be awful though.

This is my experience too.

[Pit Pony]

Last time was a refund from DVLA using Lloyds APP what a fking ballache.

God knows how many attempts.

It did work in the end. Black background, phone sat on a pile of books to steady it. Extra torch to remove shadow but no flash.

[ashenfie]

The app needs a bright room and no shadows and on a flat contrasting background works ok.

[FredericRobinson]

I had a tax refund from the DVLA, it took a couple of goes with the Santander app to get it paid in but worked eventually, not sure what the purpose of taking a photo of the blank back of the cheque was though