SBH unveils Express Clearing

State Bank of Hyderabad today introduced "Express Clearing" in the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad, a new service that would facilitate clearance of local cheques within one working day. Normally, local cheques are credited on the third working day by banks across the country, except for large-value cheques.

Under the new scheme, local cheques and demand drafts drawn on SBH, Hyderabad, would be cleared, processed and credited the same day, R P Sinha, chief general manager, told reporters.

The bank has put in place a 'jumbo drop box' at one of its service branch in Hyderabad and drop boxes at 104 branches in the twin cities to collect cheques for clearing.

The drop boxes would be cleared every half-an-hour and the cheques and DDs would be transported thrice a day to the service branch for processing. It plans to extend this service across all its 906 branches soon.

"We receive and process around 20,000 cheques on a daily basis, and expect to receive 1,500 cheques from the jumbo drop box," Sinha said, adding the bank planned to extend the scheme to cheques drawn locally on other banks as well.

SBH has also introduced issue of demand drafts (non-cash transactions only) up to 7 pm in 10 branches in the twin cities, which it plans to extend to other branches in a month.