Central Bank To Introduce Image-Based Cheque Clearing System On Feb 3

[webfact]

Central Bank to Introduce Image-based Cheque Clearing System on Feb 3

The Bank of Thailand will start implementing a new cheque clearing system on February 3, using the digital images of cheques instead of the physical cheques.

The new system could shorten the clearing cycle to one working day from the current three to five days, and reduce cheque transportation costs by 600 million baht a year.

Beginning February 3, the Bank of Thailand will roll out a new clearing system called the Image-based Cheque Clearing and Archive System, or ICAS, with selected financial institutions in Bangkok and the surrounding provinces.

The system is expected to be adopted in the capital and neighboring provinces within three months.

The changeover to ICAS in regional areas is expected to start in 2012.

Bank of Thailand Governor Prasarn Trairatworakul believes the new cheque clearing method will help reduce costs related to the physical transportation of cheques, which average 600 million baht a year based on 200,000 to 300,000 cheques being handled daily.

He said ICAS enables financial electronic settlement centers to use the digital images of the cheques instead of the physical ones in the clearing process, which could shorten the cheque clearing cycle to only one day, compared with the current three to five working days.

Prasarn added that the new system will help boost the amount of money being circulated in the economy by an additional 1.64 million baht daily and reduce lost opportunity costs to the public by a hundred million baht annually.

-- Tan Network 2012-01-17

[Pib]

Expect this will help the business community where checks are used a lot; but for personal use, paying for day-to-day living expenses checks are rarely used. But it's a good step forward.

[sparebox2]

As far as I know, Malaysia is already using this, for many many years already.

[Sateev]

If it DOES result in an effect on personal banking (like online deposit via cellphone), you can bet they will try to charge for the 'service', even though it saves them money...like ATMs.

[fire and ice]

In Australia it still takes several days for cheques to clear, and I'm pretty sure we have the same technology in use already, but no one cares as almost everything is done by internet banking these days in Australia.

In my business back in (say) 1998 I used to get about 1,000 cheques per year. Nowadays I get about 8, maybe 12 cheques per year. The rest is all internet banking transfers. Virtually no one pays any other way.

Whist I would not expect Thailand to be quick to adopt this norm, I do find it incredulous that in the USA people still write cheques all the time. Then again Americans are (ironically) slow to change many of their ingrained habits - the metric system is a classic example.

[jshorts]

In Australia it still takes several days for cheques to clear, and I'm pretty sure we have the same technology in use already, but no one cares as almost everything is done by internet banking these days in Australia.

In my business back in (say) 1998 I used to get about 1,000 cheques per year. Nowadays I get about 8, maybe 12 cheques per year. The rest is all internet banking transfers. Virtually no one pays any other way.

Whist I would not expect Thailand to be quick to adopt this norm, I do find it incredulous that in the USA people still write cheques all the time. Then again Americans are (ironically) slow to change many of their ingrained habits - the metric system is a classic example.

If the topic is Thai check clearing process changes, how is your incredulity regarding the USA's habit germane?

[anterian]

I read some time back that cheques will cease to be used soon in the UK. I currently receive one per year from a guy who refuses to go electronic. A pain in the arse as I have to physically pay it in.