Are you still holding non-CTS cheque book? If yes, then you have to ask your bank to issue a CTS-2010 cheque book soon. The Reserve Bank of India on Thursday said that CTS, will be made operational pan India by September 2020.
"The Cheque Truncation System (CTS), which is currently operational at the major clearing houses of the country, has stabilised well and it has made large efficiency gains. In view of this, a pan India CTS will be made operational by September 2020," the RBI said in its Statement of Developmental and Regulatory Policies issued. If this happens then your non-CTS cheque will not be cleared by banks.
In Cheque Truncation System, as the name suggests, movement of the physical cheque is stopped and replaced by electronic images and associated MICR line of the cheque. This process ensures quicker cheque clearance.
Worth mentioning here is that most banks have already stopped clearing non-CTS cheques since January 1, 2019. So if you are still holding a non-CTS cheque book, then you should ask your bank to issue a fresh cheque book. All the banks are now required to issue CTS-2010 cheques only.
All CTS-2010 cheques bear some common security features and standardised field placements for enabling image-based processing of cheques through optical character recognition technology, which is not available in non-CTS cheques.
The RBI has been making changes in the banking system to make it more efficient. The plan to implement the nation-wide CTS-based clearing in an effort in that direction.
