The cheque truncation policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria will commence on Friday with the Lagos Clearing House serving as the pilot zone.
Our correspondent gathered that only Deposit Money Banks in Lagos would participate in the scheme, which was earlier billed to take effect on August 1.
Cheque truncation system involves the conversion of physical cheque into electronic form for transmission to the paying bank, thereby eliminating cumbersome physical presentation of the cheque and saving time and processing costs.
The Director, Corporate Communications, CBN, Mr. Ugo Okoroafor, confirmed this to our correspondent on Tuesday, adding that the scheme would be extended to the other clearing zones across the country as soon as possible.
The CBN said conditions were appropriate for the cheque truncation scheme to commence in the Lagos area.
It said in a statement obtained by our correspondent, “As part of our preparation for the introduction of the cheque truncation system, the CBN carried out a systems audit certification test on all banks to confirm their readiness for the commencement of the scheme in Nigeria. Our finding is that conditions are appropriate for the cheque truncation scheme to commence in the Lagos area.
“The implementation of the initiative will reduce the cheque clearing cycle from T+2 to T+1, and thus make it more attractive to users, as an alternative means of payments, instead of transacting in cash.”
Under cheque truncation, the clearing cycle will reduce by one day. It means if a customer deposits a cheque early on Monday; value will be obtained on Wednesday as against Thursday under the current clearing cycle.
A visit to some banks by our correspondent, however, revealed that the banks had yet to be briefed about the commencement of the policy on Friday.
An official of one of the banks said, “We have heard too but we have not received any directive, so cheques are still taking three days to clear.”
The CBN had earlier announced that it would commence the cheque truncation scheme on August 1, saying that, “to ensure that this new process is efficient and seamless, account holders would have to ensure that their accounts are sufficiently funded before cheques are presented, as all cheques presented to an unfunded account will be returned unpaid.”
It added that account holders would be required to pre-confirm all cheques before they were presented to prevent cheques being returned unpaid.
“Special mandates on the issuance account such as the use of seals, embossment, thumb-print or colours of pen, other than black pens stated as part of a mandate would no longer be valid as only images will now be used during the clearing session. Hence, it is necessary that customers with such special mandates update their mandates,” it stated.
The bank also stated that it would no longer be in a position to oblige requests for physical confirmation of cheques as only images of cheques would be in the bank’s possession.
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