SME Times News Bureau | 06 Aug, 2020
To enhance safety of cheque payments, the Reserve Bank o f India (RBI)
on Thursday said that it has decided to introduce a mechanism of
'Positive Pay' for all cheques valued Rs 50,000 and above.
‘Positive
Pay' is a fraud prevention system that provides additional layer of
security on the instrument to prevent forgery or any other alterations.
This is offered by the banks to certain corporates dealing in high value
check transfers.
Making announcement of the proposed
introduction of the new mechanism, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said
that it will cover approximately 20 per cent to 80 per cent of the total
cheques by volume and value, respectively.
"Operational guidelines in this regard will be issued separately," Das said.
Positive
Pay will prevent and restrict dishonouring of cheques that often
results in financial and criminal penalty for the issuer.
The
mechanism is already followed by banks such as ICICI Bank which has a
feature by which a customer issuing the cheque can upload its details on
the mobile app or other online mechanism.
When the cheque
reaches for clearance from the beneficiary bank, it gets checked for
authenticity by the clearing bank before the payment is released. As
everything works online, this added layer of security offers seamless
and easy process for such transactions.