RBI Guidelines on cheque Books compliant with Cheque Truncation System (CTS-2010) Standards

As per Reserve Bank of India (RBI) guidelines, cheque books being issued by banks need to be compliant with Cheque Truncation System (CTS-2010) standards. This requirement has come into effect from 01 April 2012 for Northern and Southern Regions and for rest of the country from 30 September 2012.

We are pleased to advise that we have been issuing payable at par CTS-2010 Standard compliant cheque books to our customers since March 2012.

The new cheque standard 'CTS 2010' provides a set of minimum security features which would ensure uniformity across all cheque forms issued by banks in the country and also help presenting banks while scrutinising / recognizing cheques of drawee banks in an image-based processing scenario. The homogeneity in security features is expected to act as a deterrent against cheque frauds, while the standardisation of field placements on cheque forms would enable straight-through-processing.

Some of the additional features that have been incorporated in the new cheque forms are:

1. CTS INDIA watermark in the security paper
2. Void Pantograph
3. Bank's Logo printed in Invisible UV Ink
4. Standardization of the field placement
5. Micro-lettering

Since RBI is now moving towards accepting only CTS 2010 standard compliant cheques, please note that the old non-CTS 2010 standard cheque forms should not be used post 31 December 2012.

All customers who hold a cheque book issued by the Bank prior to 31 March 2012, are requested to apply for a new cheque book as per the "CTS-2010 standard" at the earliest.