In a bid to further revolutionalise the domestic payment system, the Reserve Bank of India is launching the cheque truncation facility on Thursday.
The banks are quite enthusiastic towards a pilot project, which is being inaugurated by the RBI executive director R Barman, in New Delhi Thursday. Only ten banks, like Punjab National Bank, State Bank of India and all of its six associates will be participating in the beginning of the pilot of the project. However, more than 23 other banks are likely to join the bandwagon soon after the completion of the pilot project. For this they have already started placing orders with the technology solution providers.
Cheque truncation is a process, which will replace the physical cheque flow with electronic information within the clearing cycle. The depositor of the cheque will have to drop his/her cheque in a kiosk placed at the ATM room itself. The depositor would be provided the receipt after the electronic image of the cheque is prepared which will be sent to the central processing centres of all the banks.
The entire process will take hardly couple of hours and will work on 24×7 basis. A number of other banks are likely to join the bandwagon on the successful completion of the pilot. Speaking to FE, Navroze Dastur, general manager, payment solutions, South Asia, NCR, which is the technology solution provider for the system, said, ?We have already received orders for providing the kiosks, NCR cheque truncation solution (NCTS), from as more as 18-19 banks so far.?
Another technology solution provider, AGS Infotech has also got orders from quite a few other banks for their cheque truncation product ‘Pro Consult 2000. Sunil Udupa, president and CEO of the company, told FE, ?The banks like ING Vysya and YES Bank have already placed orders for our products for the same facility they will be joining later on.?
