2. Payments in cash

Many years ago, Friday was known as ‘payday’, and it was the day when everyone would line up outside the cashier’s office and pick up their brown envelope which contained their wages in cash.

The team of cashiers would have spent all week working out each persons’ wages and laboriously counting out the cash.

This was a slow and expensive method of paying workers.

Another problem was that all of this cash had to be delivered to the office by a secure truck and then stored safely.

Having so much cash on the premises made some firms prime targets for criminals.

With the advent of computer systems and software that was able to work out peoples’ wages or salaries, companies began to switch over from the old manual system to a computerised system that paid wages straight into a bank account - no need for cash!

This happened gradually with larger firms who paid people monthly leading the way.

Factories who traditionally paid in cash at the end of the week were slower to follow, but most have now changed over to paying wages and salaries directly into each employees' bank account.