Those who use cheques can expect clearing to become faster and safer across the country with the Reserve Bank of India ( RBI ) now planning to implement a pan-India Cheque Truncation System (CTS) from September 2020. Till now, CTS was only operational in major clearing houses.The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), in its Statement on Development and Regulatory Policies, said, "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."Bala Parthasarathy, CEO, MoneyTap said, "CTS is a great move towards Digital India. We have already seen how NEFT, IMPS and RTGS were game-changers for the banking ecosystem. Cheques continue to be one of the prominent modes of payments in India, and the speedy cheque clearance cycle through CTS will definitely result in better customer experience. Not just for the customers, CTS will also make the process more efficient, cost-effective and safer for the banks." He said, "Speedy clearance charges will be a thing of the past and we will finally see cheques crossing all geographical barriers in real-time."Cheque Truncation System (CTS) is the process of stopping the flow of the physical cheque issued by a drawer at some point by the presenting bank en-route to the paying bank branch. In its place, an electronic image of the cheque is transmitted to the paying branch through the clearing house, along with relevant information like data on the Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR) band, date of presentation, presenting bank etc. Cheque truncation thus, obviates the need to move the physical instruments across bank branches, other than in exceptional circumstances for clearing purposes. According to RBI, this effectively eliminates the associated cost of movement of physical cheques and reduces the time required for their collection.Cheque truncation speeds up the process of collection of cheques resulting in better service to customers, reduces the scope of loss of instruments in transit, lowers the cost of collection of cheques and removes reconciliation-related and logistics-related problems, thus benefitting the system as a whole, says the central bank."With the other major products being offered in the form of real-time gross settlement (RTGS) and National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT), the Reserve Bank has created the capability to enable inter-bank and customer payments online and in near-real time. However, cheques continue to be the prominent mode of payments in the country. Reserve Bank of India has therefore decided to focus on improving the efficiency of the cheque clearing cycle. Offering CTS is a step in this direction," states RBI.In addition to operational efficiency, CTS offers several benefits to banks and customers, including human resource rationalisation, cost effectiveness, business process re-engineering, better service, adoption of latest technology, etc.