Automated cheque clearance on cards

Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB) along with commercial banks and Smart Choice Technologies (SCT) have set up Nepal Clearing House Ltd (NCHL). NCHL today signed an agreement with Jordan-based software developing company ProgresSoft Corporation to develop the software for Cheque Truncation System (CTS) in the country.
The new system is expected to start operation in eight months. At present‚ a single cheque clearance takes anything between two days to months as it is done manually by the central bank.
The customers have to wait for weeks for transaction to materialise. The cheques had to get to the central bank’s clearing office‚ then the staff there clears the cheques‚ then permit the banks to make and receive transfers.
The process being time-consuming‚ general public avoids‚ making cheque payments of the bank other than the one from which cheque has been drawn.
NCHL will introduce and implement CTS that will provide automated cheque clearance service so that cheques will be cleared within seconds so that beneficiaries can access the fund the same day. “The company has plans to later establish a national payments gateway to facilitate the electronic payments and financial transactions across banks and financial institutions in Nepal‚” said Sashin Joshi‚ president of Nepal Bankers’ Association (NBA) that has been actively involved in the project.
The automated system is supposed to make whole cheque clearing system less tedious‚ quicker and efficient‚ encouraging people to rely more on payments through cheques.
“The operation of NCHL will relieve the central bank from its subsidiary work and free the resources so that it can focus more on its core activities‚” said Dr Yubaraj Khatiwada‚ Governor of the central bank that has 10 per cent stake in the Nepal Clearing House Ltd.
The ProgresSoft’s software is the system that electronically transfers cheque images that eliminates the need of physically transporting cheques from banks to the central bank’s clearing office. Electronic cheque clearance is the specialty of ProgresSoft as the company has successfully implemented the system in Qatar‚ Oman‚ Jordan among others.