Issuer will be able to send cheque’s pic – Times of India

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Mumbai: Account-holders will soon be able to send to their bank the details of a high-value cheque they issue to third parties, which will enable safer and faster clearance of cheques above Rs 50,000. The RBI in its monetary policy announcements said it was introducing the ‘positive pay’ mechanism for cheques, which will enable the bank to spot a forgery or misuse in issued cheques.
“Under this mechanism, cheques will be processed for payment by the drawee bank based on information passed on by its customer at the time of issuance of cheque. This measure will cover approximately 20% of total cheques issued in the country by volume and 80% by value,” the RBI said. At present, there is straight-through processing under the cheque truncation system with optical/image character recognition technology, which scans and sends an image of the cheque for clearing. ‘Positive pay’ will further augment customer safety in cheque payments and reduce instances of fraud on account of tampering of cheque leaves.
ICICI Bank has been one of the early adopters of this feature. The bank had introduced a mobile app that allows customers to upload pictures of the cheque they issue to their own banks. When the beneficiary submits the cheque for encashment, the details are compared with those provided to the bank through the app. If they match, the cheque is honoured and in case of a mismatch, the cheque is referred to the issuer.