Your New Cheques

 The new Cheque Truncation System (CTS-2010) will eliminate physical movement of cheques for clearing. Instead, only their electronic images, along with key information, will be captured and transmitted. It will make the clearing process more efficient, secure and quicker.

If you have ordered your cheque books recently, say, a month ago, you may already have the new cheque leaves with you. Since most banks have already migrated to the new system, chances are that your bank would have sent you CTS-compliant cheque leaves.However, if you have received the cheque book more than two or three months ago, you need to run a status check. For instance, the compliant ones will have the new rupee symbol inscribed near the numerical ‘amount’ field.The new cheques will also have “Please sign above”  mentioned on the cheque leafs on right had side bottom; and, a void pantograph (wavelike design)  embossed on left hand side of the CTS cheque leaf.

To avoid problems in future make it a point to get these cheques from your bank if you haven’t already got them.Also quickly cash in any old format cheques you have received to avoid having to go to the trouble of having the issuer re-issue them.Also remember to issue new post dated cheques to banks you have taken loans from.And if you like to collect coins,bank-notes,hundis and the like,don’t forget to keep aside a few of these cheques for your collection.

And BTW you will need to be careful while writing the new cheques. For instance, cheques with alterations in crucial fields like payee’s name and amount in figures or words will not be processed under the new system.So in case of any corrections, issue a new cheque . The ones with alterations will not be accepted even if you put your full signature authenticating the changes.Also, it is important to use image-friendly-coloured-inks while writing the cheques. As per RBI guidelines, you should use dark-coloured inks for the purpose.