The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) today prescribed enhanced security features and standardised fields for bank cheques to help straight-through-processing using optical technology.
The central bank said the rollout timetable for revised benchmark prescriptions, or Cheque Truncation System (CTS)-2010 standard, would be announced later. The Indian Bank’s Association (IBA) and National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) will co-ordinate and advise banks on these additional security features.
The new features would include use of quality paper, watermark and printing of bank logos in invisible ink, standard size, clutter-free background, and use of ultra violet images. “Homogeneity of security features is expected to act as a deterrent against cheque frauds,” RBI said.
While maintaining status quo on existing paper specification, the central bank said paper should be image-friendly and have protection against alterations by having chemical sensitivity to acids, alkalis, bleaches and solvents, giving a visible result after a fraudulent attack. The paper should not glow under ultraviolet (UV) lightso that the feel of cheques is uniform across banks.
Referring to use of watermark, it said that at the manufacturing stage, cheques should carry a standardised watermark with the words “CTS-INDIA” that can be seen when held against any light source. This will make it difficult to photocopy or print an instrument, since this paper will be available only to printers. The watermark should be oval in shape and the diameter could be 2.6-3 cm. Each cheque must hold at least one full watermark.
Banks’ logos shall be printed in UV ink. The logos will be captured by and visible under UV-enabled scanners and lamps.
