Sheikh Shahariar Zaman

Bangladesh Bank (BB) is set to launch the automated clearing-house for Dhaka region on August 3 to make the payment system faster and easier, said a central bank official.

Under the existing system, it takes two days (T+2) to process a cheque, but when the new system will become fully functional, it will take just one day.

It is expected that about 1,200 branches of different banks in Dhaka region will be beneficiary of the system. "If the banks want, they can bring their branches in Gazipur or Naraynganj under the purview of the new system," he said.

The central bank now receives cheques up to 5:00pm, but the time would be extended to 7:00pm after introduction of the new system.

Under the system, the banks will not need to send the cheques physically, instead they will send images of cheques and data files through online to the central bank for clearing.

The Bangladesh Bank would send the images and data files to the respective banks on the same day for verification, and the banks would send their confirmation on the next day, he said.

"For example, when a client of Sonali Bank (SB) will deposit a cheque of Janata Bank (JB), the SB will send the image of the cheque and a data file to the central bank in the evening."

"JB will receive the image and data next morning and verify that the account has sufficient cash to clear the cheque. If there is no problem, it will be informed to the central bank by noon."

BB will notify the status of the cheque by 2:00pm, so that the client can withdraw his money by 3:00pm, he also said.

The banks have to introduce new chequebooks with magnetic ink character recognition (MICR) and equip at least its local office with a machine called reader-sorter to extract data from the MICR and store it in computer.

MICR is a number that contains all the relevant information of a cheque like bank name, branch name, account number and cheque number.

It takes over a minute to record a cheque details under the existing system, but a reader-sorter machine can extract data from 60 cheques per minute.

Sonali Bank receives the highest number of cheques, about 6,000 per day, but other big banks receive 1,500 to 2,000 cheques on an average in Dhaka region. There are some banks, which receive less than 100 cheques per day.

At the initial stage, 10 to 15 banks could join the automated clearing-house system, but it is expected that all the banks would join it by the year-end, he said.

If a bank cannot join the system, he can use the reader-sorter machine in the central bank by paying a service charge. In that case they have to bring the cheques physically to the central bank, but they can confirm the verification status of the cheques through online, he added.