RBI's continuous cheque clearing system rolls out: How it works
The Reserve Bank of India just rolled out the continuous cheque clearing system under the Cheque Truncation System (CTS), aiming to make cheque payments faster.
Now, cheques can clear in hours instead of days.
But, as with most new tech, the launch hasn't been totally smooth—think blurry scans and some confused staff slowing things down.
How the new system works
With the continuous cheque clearing system, cheques dropped off between 10am and 4pm are scanned and processed on a near real-time basis.
Settlements happen every hour from 11am to 7pm and if a bank doesn't respond by 7pm the cheque is auto-approved.
This means money can hit your account way faster than before.
Initial hiccups and how banks are fixing them
The first phase saw issues like poor scan quality and technical hiccups that needed manual fixes.
To help, RBI extended clearing hours to 11pm for now.
Banks are training staff and working on system upgrades to get things running smoothly.
Why this matters
Even though cheque use has dropped from 450 million a month in 2019 to around 200-300 million now, the continuous cheque clearing system is a big upgrade for anyone still using cheques.
It promises more reliable, faster payments across India—and could make old-school cheques feel a bit more modern.