The Reserve Bank of India has decided to extend the new Cheque Truncation System (CTS) across all bank branches in the country. The CTS is currently operational in major clearing houses in the country, but not in smaller branches of various banks.
The RBI informed in a fresh notification that banks need to ensure that all their branches participate in "image-based" CTS under respective grids by September 30, 2020.
"To leverage the availability of CTS and provide uniform customer experience irrespective of the location of her/his bank branch, it has been decided to extend CTS across all bank branches in the country," RBI said.
"They are free to adopt a model of their choice, like deploying suitable infrastructure in every branch or following a hub and spoke model, etc. and concerned banks shall coordinate with the respective Regional Offices of RBI to operationalise this," it added.
The RBI also advised banks to inform it about the roadmap to achieve pan-India coverage of CTS and submit a status report before April 30, 2021.
It may be noted that CTS has been in use since 2010 and presently covers around 1,50,000 branches.
(With inputs from agencies)