Cheque

Example of a Canadian cheque Example of a South Korean cheque, where the payee and signature are on the reverse side A cheque drawn on the Regent Street (Clifton), Bristol branch of Westminster Bank, England dated 14 August 1956. Notice (a) the bank clerk's red mark verifying the signature, (b) the two-pence stamp duty, (c) that this is a "crossed cheque" disallowing transfer of payment to another account, (d) holes punched by hand through the cheque by the bank, and (e) that there are no magnetic-ink characters for computer sorting—banks did not have computers in 1956 and had staff sort millions of cheques daily by hand.

A cheque or check (American English) is a piece of paper (usually) that orders a payment of money. The person writing the cheque, the drawer, usually has a chequing account where their money is deposited. The drawer writes the various details including the money amount, date, and a payee on the cheque, and signs it, ordering their bank, know as the drawee, to pay this person or company the amount of money stated.

Cheques are a type of bill of exchange and were developed as a way to make payments without the need to carry around large amounts of gold and silver. Paper money also evolved from bills of exchange, and are similar to cheques in that they are a written order to pay the given amount to whoever had it in their possession (the "bearer").

Technically, a cheque is a negotiable instrument^{[nb 1]} instructing a financial institution to pay a specific amount of a specific currency from a specified demand account held in the drawer/depositor's name with that institution. Both the drawer and payee may be natural persons or legal entities.

Although cheques have been around since at least 9th century, it was during the 20th century that cheques became a highly popular non-cash method for making payments and the usage of cheques peaked. By the second half of the 20th century, as cheque processing became automated, billions were issued each year with volumes peaking in or around the early 1990s^[1]. Since that time cheque usage has seen significant decline as electronic payment systems started to replace physical cheques. In a number of countries cheques have become a marginal payment system or have been phased out completely.

Etymology and spelling

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The spellings check, checque, and cheque were used interchangeably from the 1600s until the 1900s.^[2] However, since the 1800s, the spelling cheque (from the French word chèque) has become standard for the financial instrument in the Commonwealth and Ireland, while check is used only for the verb "to verify", thus distinguishing the two definitions in writing.^{[nb 2]}

In American English, the usual spelling for both is "check".^[4]

History

The cheque had its origins in the ancient banking system, in which bankers would issue orders at the request of their customers, to pay money to identified payees. Such an order was referred to as a bill of exchange. The use of bills of exchange facilitated trade by eliminating the need for merchants to carry large quantities of currency (e.g. gold) to purchase goods and services. A draft is a bill of exchange which is not payable on demand of the payee. (However, draft in the U.S. Uniform Commercial Code today means any bill of exchange, whether payable on demand or at a later date; if payable on demand it is a "demand draft", or if drawn on a financial institution, a cheque.)

Early years

The ancient Romans are believed^[5] to have used an early form of cheque known as praescriptiones in the first century BC. During the 3rd century AD, banks in Persia and other territories in the Persian Sassanid Empire issued letters of credit known as chak (In New Persian script: چک. In Shahnameh there are several mentions of use of chak and in post-Islamic Arabic document this word appears as Arabicised ṣakks or صکّ).

Muslim traders are known to have used the cheque or ṣakk system since the time of Harun al-Rashid (9th century) of the Abbasid Caliphate.^[6]

Between 1118 and 1307, it is believed the Knights Templar introduced a cheque system for pilgrims travelling to the Holy Land or across Europe.^[7] The pilgrims would deposit funds at one chapter house, then withdraw it from another chapter at their destination by showing a draft of their claim. These drafts would be written in a very complicated code only the Templars could decipher.

In the 13th century in Venice bills of exchange was developed as a legal device to allow international trade without the need to carry around large amounts of gold and silver. Their use was subsequently adopted in France, and from there the practice was brought to England.

Modern era

By the 17th century, bills of exchange were being used for domestic payments in England. Cheques, a type of bill of exchange, then began to evolve. They were initially known as ‘drawn notes’ as they enabled a customer to draw on the funds they held on account with their banker and required immediate payment.^[8] These were hand written and one of the earliest known still to be in existence was drawn on Messrs Morris and Clayton, scriveners and bankers based in the City of London, and dated 16 February 1659.

In 1717 the Bank of England pioneered the first use of a pre-printed form. These forms were printed on ‘cheque’ paper to prevent fraud and customers had to attend in person and obtain a numbered form from the cashier. Once written the cheque would have to be brought back to the bank for settlement.

Up until around 1770 an informal exchange of cheques took place between London Banks. Clerks of each bank visited all of the other banks to exchange cheques, whilst keeping a tally of balances between them until they settled with each other. Daily cheque clearings began around 1770 when the bank clerks met at the Five Bells, a tavern in Lombard Street in the City of London, to exchange all their cheques in one place and settle the balances in cash.

In 1811 the Commercial Bank of Scotland is thought to have been the first bank to personalise its customers cheques, by printing the name of the account holder vertically along the left-hand edge.^[9] In 1830 the Bank of England introduce books of 50, 100 or 200 forms and counterparts, bound or stitched. These cheque books became a common format for the distribution of cheques to bank customers.

In the late 1800s a number of countries formalised laws around cheques. The UK passing the Bills of Exchange act in 1882 which covered cheques. In 1931 an attempt was made to simplify the international use of cheques with the Geneva Convention on the unification of the law relating to cheques.^[10] Many European and South American states as well as Japan joined the convention. However all the members of the common law including the United States and the members of Commonwealth did not participate.

In 1959 a standard for machine readable characters (MICR) was agreed and patented in the United States for use with cheques. This opened the way for the first automated reader/sorting machines for clearing cheques. The following years saw a dramatic change in the way that cheques were handled and processed as automation increased. Cheque volumes continued to grow, and in the late 20th century cheques became the most popular non cash method for making payments, with billions of them processed each year. Most countries saw cheque volumes peak in the late 1980s or early 1990s. At that time electronic payment methods started to become popular and as a result cheque usage started to decline.

In 1969 cheque guarantee card were introduced in some countries, this allowed a retailer to confirm that a cheque would be honoured when they were used to pay at point of sale. This was done by having the drawer sign the cheque in front of the retailer so it could be compared to the signature on the card and them writing the cheque guarantee card number of the back of the cheque. These were generally phased out and replaced by debit cards starting in the mid 1990s.

Starting in the mid 1990s a number of countries enacted laws to allow for cheque truncation, this is where a physical cheque is converted into electronic form for transmission to the paying bank or clearing house. This eliminated the cumbersome physical presentation and saved time and processing costs. However a number of countries decided that implementation costs could not be justified at a time when alternative electronic payment systems were emerging.

In 2002, Germany and a number of other European countries phased out the use of cheques altogether when the Eurocheque system, that they had used as their domestic checking system, ceased 1 Jan 2002. By 2010 a number of countries had phased out the use of cheques and most others signalled that they would end their use in the following years.

Parts of a cheque

Parts of a cheque based on a UK example

1. drawee, the financial institution where the cheque can be presented for payment
2. payee
3. date of issue
4. amount of currency
5. drawer, the person or entity making the cheque
6. signature of drawer
7. Machine readable routing and account information

The four main items on a cheque are

• Drawer, the person or entity who makes the cheque
• Payee, the recipient of the money
• Drawee, the bank or other financial institution where the cheque can be presented for payment
• Amount, the currency amount

As cheque usage increased during the 19th and 20th centuries additional items were added to increase security or to make processing easier for the bank or financial institution. A signature of the drawer was required to authorise the cheque and this is main way to authenticate the cheque. Second it became customary to write the amount in words as well as in numbers to avoid mistakes and make it harder to fraudulently alter the amount after the cheque had been written.

An issue date was added, and cheques may not be valid a certain amount of time after issue. In the US a cheque is typically valid for six months after the date of issue but this depends on where the cheque is drawn^[11] in Australia this is typically fifteen months.^[12] A cheque that has an issue date in the future, a post-dated cheque, may not be able to be presented until that date has passed, writing a post dated cheque may simply be ignored or is illegal in some countries.

A cheque number was added and cheque books were issued so that cheque numbers were sequential. This allowed for some basic fraud detection by banks and made sure one cheque was not presented twice.

In some countries such as the US, cheques contain a memo line where the purpose of the cheque can be indicated as a convenience without affecting the official parts of the cheque. In the United Kingdom this is not available and such notes are sometimes written on the reverse side of the cheque.

In the US, at the top (when cheque oriented vertically) of the reverse side of the cheque, there are usually one or more blank lines labelled something like "Endorse here".

Starting in the 1960s machine readable routing and account information was added to the bottom of cheques in MICR format. This allowed automated sorting and routing of cheques between banks and led to automated central clearing facilities. The information provided at the bottom of the cheque is country specific and is driven by each country's cheque clearing system. This meant that the payee no longer had to go the bank that issued the cheque, instead they could deposit it at their own bank or any other banks and the cheque would be routed back to the originating bank and funds transferred to their own bank account.

For additional protection, a cheque can be crossed so that funds must be paid into a bank account in the name of the payee. The format and wording varies from country to country, but generally two parallel lines and/or the words 'Account Payee' or similar may be placed either vertically across the cheque or in the top left hand corner. In addition the words 'or bearer' must be not be used or crossed out on the payee line.

Usage

Parties to regular cheques generally include a ' drawer, the depositor writing a cheque; a drawee, the financial institution where the cheque can be presented for payment; and a payee, the entity to whom the drawer issues the cheque. The drawer drafts or draws a cheque, which is also called cutting a check, especially in the United States. There may also be a beneficiary – for example, in depositing a cheque with a custodian of a brokerage account, the payee will be the custodian, but the cheque may be marked "F/B/O" ("for the benefit of") the beneficiary.

Ultimately, there is also at least one endorsee which would typically be the financial institution servicing the payee's account, or in some circumstances may be a third party to whom the payee owes or wishes to give money.

Cheques may be valid regardless of denomination and are used within numerous scenarios in place of cash.

A payee that accepts a cheque will typically deposit it in an account at the payee's bank, and have the bank process the cheque. In some cases, the payee will take the cheque to a branch of the drawee bank, and cash the cheque there. If a cheque is refused at the drawee bank (or the drawee bank returns the cheque to the bank that it was deposited at) because there are insufficient funds for the cheque to clear, it is said that the cheque has bounced. Once a cheque is approved and all appropriate accounts involved have been credited, the cheque is stamped with some kind of cancellation mark, such as a "paid" stamp. The cheque is now a cancelled cheque. Cancelled cheques are placed in the account holder's file. The account holder can request a copy of a cancelled cheque as proof of a payment. This is known as the cheque clearing cycle.

Cheques can be lost or go astray within the cycle, or be delayed if further verification is needed in the case of suspected fraud. A cheque may thus bounce some time after it has been deposited.

Following concerns about the amount of time it took banks to clear cheques, the United Kingdom Office of Fair Trading set up a working group in 2006 to look at the cheque clearing cycle. Their report^[13] acknowledged that clearing times could be improved, but that the costs associated with speeding up the cheque clearing cycle could not be justified considering the use of cheques was declining. However, they concluded the biggest problem was the unlimited time a bank could take to dishonor a cheque. To address this, changes were implemented so that the maximum time after a cheque was deposited that it could be dishonoured was six days, what was known as the 'certainty of fate' principle.

An advantage to the drawer of using cheques instead of debit card transactions in that they know the drawer's bank will not release the money until several days later. Paying with a cheque and making a deposit before it clears the drawer's bank is called "kiting" or "floating" and is generally illegal in the United States, but rarely enforced unless the drawer uses multiple chequing accounts with multiple institutions to increase the delay or to steal the funds.

Declining Use

Cheques have been in decline for many years, both for point of sale transactions (for which credit cards and debit cards are increasingly preferred) and for third party payments (e.g. bill payments), where the decline has been accelerated by the emergence of telephone banking and online banking. Being paper-based, cheques are costly for banks to process in comparison to electronic payments, so banks in many countries now discourage the use of cheques, either by charging for cheques or by making the alternatives more attractive to customers. Cheques are also more costly for the issuer and receiver of a cheque. In particular the handling of money transfer requires more effort and is time consuming. The cheque has to be handed over on a personal meeting or has to be sent by mail. The rise of automated teller machines (ATMs) has led to an era of easy access to cash, which make the necessity of writing a cheque to someone because the banks were closed a thing of the past.

Alternatives to cheques

In addition to Cash there are number of other payment systems that have emerged to compete against cheques;

1. Debit Card payments
2. Credit Card payments
3. Direct debit (initiated by payee)
4. Direct credit (initiated by payer), ACH in US, Giro in Europe
5. Wire transfer (local and international)
6. Electronic bill payments using Internet banking
7. Online payment services (for example PayPal and WorldPay)

Europe

In most European countries, cheques are now very rarely used, even for third party payments. In these countries, it is a standard practice for businesses to publish their bank details on invoices, in order to facilitate the receipt of payments by giro. Even before the introduction of online banking, it has been possible in some countries to make payments to third parties using ATMs, which may accurately and rapidly capture invoice amounts, due dates, and payee bank details via a bar code reader to reduce keying. In some countries, entering the bank account number results in the bank revealing the name of the payee as an added safeguard against fraud. One of the essential procedural differences is that with a cheque, the onus is on the payee to initiate the payment in the banking system, whereas with a giro transfer, the onus is on the payer to effect the payment. The process is also procedurally more simple, as no cheques are ever posted, can claim to have been posted, or need banking or clearance.

In Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Scandinavia, cheques have almost completely vanished in favour of direct bank transfers and electronic payments. Direct bank transfers, using so-called giro transfers, have been standard procedure since the 1950s to send and receive regular payments like rent and wages and even mail-order invoices. In the Netherlands, Austria, and Germany, all kinds of invoices are commonly accompanied by so-called acceptgiro's (Netherlands) or Überweisungen (German), which are essentially standardised bank transfer order forms preprinted with the payee's account details and the amount payable. The payer fills in his account details and hands the form to a clerk at his bank, which will then transfer the money. It is also very common to allow the payee to automatically withdraw the requested amount from the payer's account (Lastschrifteinzug (German) or Incasso (machtiging) (Netherlands)). Though similar to paying by cheque, the payee only needs the payer's bank and account number. Since the early 1990s, this method of payment has also been available to merchants. Due to this, credit cards are rather uncommon in Germany and Austria, and are mostly used for the credit function rather than for cashless payment. However, debit cards are widespread in these countries, since virtually all Austrian and German banks issue debit cards instead of simple ATM cards for use on current accounts. Acceptance of cheques has been further diminished since the late 1990s, because of the abolition of the Eurocheque. Cashing a foreign bank cheque is possible, but usually very expensive.

In Finland, banks stopped issuing personal cheques in about 1993 in favour of giro systems, which are now almost exclusively electronically initiated either via internet banking or payment machines located at banks and shopping malls. All Nordic countries have used an interconnected international giro system since the 1950s, and in Sweden, cheques are now totally abandoned. Electronic payments across the European Union are now fast and inexpensive.

In Poland cheques were withdrawn from use in 2006, mainly because of lack of popularity due to widespread adaptation of credit and debit cards.

In the United Kingdom, Ireland, and France, there is still a heavy reliance on cheques by some sectors of the population, partly because cheques remain free of charge to personal customers; however, bank-to-bank transfers are increasing in popularity. Since 2001, businesses in the United Kingdom have made more electronic payments than cheque payments.^[14] In a bid to discourage cheques, most utilities in the United Kingdom charge higher prices to customers who choose to pay by a means other than direct debit, even if the customer pays by another electronic method. Some shops in the United Kingdom and many in France no longer accept cheques as a means of payment. An example of this is when Shell announced in September 2005 that it would no longer accept cheques in its UK petrol stations.^[15] More recently, this has been followed by other major fuel retailers, such as Texaco, BP, and Total. Asda announced in April 2006 that it would stop accepting cheques, initially as a trial in the London area,^[16] and Boots announced in September 2006 that it would stop accepting cheques, initially as a trial in Sussex and Surrey.^[17] Currys (and other stores in the DSGi group) and WH Smith also no longer accept cheques. Cheques are now widely predicted to become a thing of the past, or at most, a niche product used to pay private individuals or those businesses that do not, or cannot easily, accept electronic payments (e.g. music teachers, driving instructors, children's sports lessons, very small shops, schools etc.).^[18] In fact, the UK Payments Council announced in December 2009 that cheques would be phased out by October 2018, but only if adequate alternatives are developed. They will perform annual checks on the progress of other payments systems and a final review of the decision will be held in 2016.^[19]

North America

The United States still relies heavily on cheques, caused by the absence of a high volume system for low value electronic payments.^[20] About 70 billion cheques were written annually in the U.S. by 2001, though almost 25% of Americans do not have bank accounts at all.^[20] When sending a payment by online banking in the U.S. at some banks, the sending bank mails a cheque to the payee's bank or to the payee rather than sending the funds electronically. Certain companies with whom a person pays with a cheque will turn it into an Automated Clearing House (ACH) or electronic transaction. Banks try to save time processing cheques by sending them electronically between banks. Many utilities and most credit cards will also allow customers to pay by providing bank information and having the payee draw payment from the customer's account (direct debit). Many people in the U.S. still use paper money orders to pay bills or transfer money, since they act like cheques in payment processing systems, have security advantages over mailing cash, and do not require access to a bank account in order to obtain.^[20]

Canada's usage of cheques is slightly less than that of the U.S. The Interac system, which allows instant fund transfers via magnetic strip and PIN, is widely used by merchants to the point that very few brick and mortar merchants accept cheques anymore. Many merchants accept Interac debit payments but not credit card payments, even though most Interac terminals can support credit card payments. Financial institutions also facilitate transfers between accounts within different institutions with the Email Money Transfer (EMT) service.

Cheques are still widely used for government cheques, payroll, rent, and utility bill payments, though direct deposits and online/telephone bill payments are also widely offered.

Asia

In many Asian countries cheques were not widely used and generally only used by the wealthy, with cash being used for the majority of payments. Where cheques were used they have been declining rapidly, by 2009 there was practically negligible consumer cheque usage in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. This declining trend was accelerated by these developed markets advanced financial services infrastructure. However many of the developing markets have also seen an increasing use of electronic payment systems, 'leap-frogging' the less efficient chequing system altogether.^[21]

Oceania

In Australia, following global trends, the use of cheques continues to decline. In 1994 the value of daily cheque transactions was AU$25 billion, by 2004 this had dropped to only AU$5 billion.

Similar to other countries New Zealand payment statistics indicate a strong move away from cheques in favour of electronic payment methods. From being the most popular form of non-cash payment until the mid-1990s, cheques now lag far behind EFTPOS payment transactions and electronic credits. Their usage is declining at about 6% per year. In 1993 cheque payments accounted for over 50% of transactions through the banking system with an averaged 130 cheques per capita. By the end of 2006, this had dropped to 9% with 41 cheques per capita.

Variations on regular cheques

In addition to reglar cheques, a number of variations were developed to address specific needs or to address issues when using a regular cheque.

Cashier’s cheques and Bank drafts

Cashier's cheques and banker's drafts also known as a bank cheque or treasurer's cheque, are cheques issued against the funds of a financial institution rather than an individual account holder. Typically, the term cashier's cheques are used in the US and banker's drafts are used in the UK. The mechanism differs slightly from country to country but in general the bank issuing the cashiers cheque or bankers draft will allocate the funds at the point the cheque is drawn. This provides a guarantee, save for a failure of the bank, that it will be honoured. Cashier's cheques are perceived to be as good as cash but they are still a cheque, a misconception often exploited by scam artists. A lost or stolen cheque can still stopped like any other cheque so payment is not completely guaranteed.

Certified cheque

When a certified cheque is drawn, the bank operating the account verifies there are currently sufficient funds in the drawer's account to honour the cheque. Those funds are then set aside in the bank's internal account until the check is cashed or returned by the payee. Thus, a certified check cannot "bounce", and, in this manner, its liquidity is similar to cash, absent failure of the bank. The bank indicates this fact by making a notation on the face of the cheque (technically called an acceptance).

Payroll cheque

A cheque used to pay wages may be referred to as a payroll cheque. Even when the use of cheques for paying wages and salaries became rare, the vocabulary "pay cheque" still remained commonly used to describe the payment of wages and salaries. Payroll cheques issued by the military to soldiers, or by some other government entities to their employees, beneficiants, and creditors, are referred to as warrants.

Warrants

Warrants look like cheques and clear through the banking system like cheques, but are not drawn against cleared funds in a deposit account. A cheque differs from a warrant in that the warrant is not necessarily payable on demand and may not be negotiable.^[22] They are often issued by government entities such as the military to pay wages or supplies. In this case they are an instruction to the entities treasurer department to pay the warrant holder on demand or after a specified maturity date.

Travellers cheque

A traveller's cheque is designed to allow the person signing it to make an unconditional payment to someone else as a result of paying the account holder for that privilege. Traveller's cheques can usually be replaced if lost or stolen and people often used to use them on vacation instead of cash as many businesses used to accept traveller's cheques as currency. The use of credit or debit cards has, however, begun to replace the traveller's cheque as the standard for vacation money due to their convenience and additional security for the retailer. This has resulted in many businesses no longer accepting traveller's cheques.

Money or Postal order

A cheque sold by a post office or merchant such as a grocery for payment by a third party for a customer is referred to as a money order or postal order. These are paid for in advance when the order is drawn and are guaranteed by the institution that issues them and can only be paid to the named third party. This was a common way to send low value payments to third parties avoiding the risks associated with sending cash via the mail, prior to the advent of electronic payment methods.

Oversized cheques

Oversized cheques are often used in public events such as donating money to charity or giving out prizes such as Publishers Clearing House. The cheques are commonly 18 by 36 inches (46 × 91 cm) in size,^[23] however, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, the largest ever is 12 by 25 metres (39 × 82 ft).^[24] Regardless of the size, such cheques can still be redeemed for their cash value as long as they have the same parts as a normal cheque, although usually the oversized cheque is kept as a souvenir and a normal cheque is provided.^[25] A bank may levy additional charges for clearing an oversized cheque.

Payment vouchers

Some public assistance programs such as the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, or Aid to Families with Dependent Children make vouchers available to their beneficiaries, which are good up to a certain monetary amount for purchase of grocery items deemed eligible under the particular programme. The voucher can be deposited like any other cheque by a participating supermarket or other approved business.

Cheques around the world

Australia

The Cheques Act 1986 is the body of law governing the issuance of cheques and payment orders in Australia. Procedural and practical issues governing the clearance of cheques and payment orders are handled by Australian Payments Clearing Association (APCA).

In 1999, banks adopted a system to allow faster clearance of cheques by electronically transmitting information about cheques, this brought clearance times down from 5 to 3 days. Prior to that cheques had to be physically transported to the paying bank before processing began. If it was dishonoured, it was physically returned.

All licensed banks in Australia may issue cheques in their own name. Non-banks are not permitted to issue cheques in their own name but may issue, and have drawn on them, payment orders (which functionally are no different from cheques)

Canada

In Canada there are similar cheque types to the US but there are many noticeable and subtle changes in the way cheques are processed that one must be aware of

• It is possible to write cheques in currencies (using the standardised ISO currency names) that are not in Canadian Dollars.
• Canadian cheques can legally be written in English or French or Eskimo-Aleut languages.
• In Canada, cheque sizes and types -- as well as endorsements requirements and MICR tolerances are overseen by the Canadian Payments Association (CPA).
• A tele-cheque (in the US banking system it has another name) is a paper payment item that resembles a cheque except that it is neither created nor signed by the payer—instead it is created (and may be signed) by a third party on behalf of the payer. Under CPA Rules these are prohibited in the clearing system effective 27 January 2004. This kind of cheque is still acceptable in the US banking system.

New Zealand

Instrument-specific legislation includes the Cheques Act 1960, part of the Bills of Exchange Act 1908, which codifies aspects related to the cheque payment instrument, notably the procedures for the endorsement, presentment and payment of cheques. A 1995 amendment provided for the electronic presentment of cheques and removed the previous requirement to deliver cheques physically to the paying bank, opening the way for cheque truncation and imaging. Truncation allows for the transmission of an electronic image of all or part of the cheque to the paying bank’s branch, instead of the cumbersome physical presentment. This reduced the total cheque clearance time, as well as eliminating the costs of physically moving the cheque.

The registered banks under supervision of Reserve Bank of New Zealand provide the cheque payment services. Once banked, cheques are processed electronically together with other retail payment instrument.

United Kingdom

In the UK all cheques must now conform to "Cheque and Credit Clearing Company (C&CCC) Standard 3", the industry standard detailing layout and font, be printed on a specific weight of paper (CBS1), and contain explicitly defined security features.

Since 1995, all cheque printers must be members of the Cheque Printer Accreditation Scheme (CPAS). The scheme is managed by the Cheque and Credit Clearing Company and requires that all cheques for use in the British clearing process are produced by accredited printers who have adopted stringent security standards.

The rules concerning crossed cheques are set out in Section 1 of the Cheques Act 1992 and prevent cheques being cashed by or paid into the accounts of third parties. On a crossed cheque the words “account payee only” (or similar) are printed between two parallel vertical lines in the centre of the cheque. This makes the cheque non-transferable and is to avoid cheques being endorsed and paid into an account other than that of the named payee. Crossing cheques basically ensures that the money is paid into an account of the intended beneficiary of the cheque.

Following concerns about the amount of time it took banks to clear cheques, the United Kingdom Office of Fair Trading set up a working group in 2006 to look at the cheque clearing cycle. They produced a report^[13] recommending maximum times for the cheque clearing which were introduced in UK from November 2007^[26]. In the report the date the credit appeared on the recipient's account (usually the day of deposit) was designated 'T'. At 'T + 2' (2 business days afterwards) the value would count for calculation of credit interest or overdraft interest on the recipient's account. At 'T + 4' clients would be able to withdraw funds (though this will often happen earlier, at the bank's discretion). 'T + 6' is the last day that a cheque can bounce without the recipient's permission - this is known as 'certainty of fate'. Before the introduction of this standard, the only way to know the 'fate' of a cheque has been 'Special Presentation', which would normally involve a fee, where the drawee bank contacts the payee bank to see if the payee has that money at that time. 'Special Presentation' needed to be stated at the time of depositing in the cheque.

Cheque volumes peaked in 1990 when four billion cheque payments were made. Of these, 2.5 billion were cleared through the inter-bank clearing managed by the C&CCC, the remaining 1.5 billion being in-house cheques which were either paid into the branch on which they were drawn or processed intra-bank without going through the clearings. As volumes started to fall, the challenges faced by the clearing banks were then of a different nature: how to benefit from technology improvements in a declining business environment.

Although the UK did not adopt the euro as its national currency when other European countries did in 1999, many banks began offering euro denominated accounts with chequebooks, principally to business customers. The cheques can be used to pay for certain goods and services in the UK. The same year, the C&CCC set up the euro cheque clearing system to process euro denominated cheques separately from sterling cheques in Great Britain.

Cheques will be withdrawn from use in the UK on 31 October 2018^[27].

United States

In the United States, cheques (spelled "checks") are governed by Article 3 of the Uniform Commercial Code.

• An order check — the most common form in the United States—is payable only to the named payee or his or her endorsee, as it usually contains the language "Pay to the order of (name)."
• A bearer check is payable to anyone who is in possession of the document: this would be the case if the cheque does not state a payee, or is payable to "bearer" or to "cash" or "to the order of cash", or if the cheque is payable to someone who is not a person or legal entity, e.g. if the payee line is marked "Happy Birthday".
• A counter check is a bank cheque given to customers who have run out of cheques or whose cheques are not yet available. It is often left blank, and is used for purposes of withdrawal.

In the United States, the terminology for a cheque historically varied with the type of financial institution on which it is drawn. In the case of a savings and loan association it was a negotiable order of withdrawal; if a credit union it was a share draft. Checks as such were associated with chartered commercial banks. However, common usage has increasingly conformed to more recent versions of Article 3, where check means any or all of these negotiable instruments. Certain types of cheques drawn on a government agency, especially payroll cheques, may also be referred to as a payroll warrant.

At the bottom of each cheque there is the routing / account number in MICR format. The routing transit number is a nine-digit number in which the first 4 digits identifies the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank's cheque-processing center. This is followed by digits 5 through 8, identifying the specific bank served by that cheque-processing center. Digit 9 is a verification check digit, computed using a complex algorithm of the previous 8 digits.^[28]

• Typically the routing number is followed by a group 8 or 9 MICR digits that indicates the particular account number at that bank. The account number is assigned independently by the various banks.
• Typically the account number is followed by a group of 3 or 4 MICR digits that indicates a particular cheque number from that account.
• fractional routing number (U.S. only) - also known as the transit number, consists of a denominator mirroring the first 4 digits of the routing number. And a hyphenated numerator, also known as the ABA number, in which the first part is a city code (1-49), if the account is in one of 49 specific cities, or a state code (50-99) if it is not in one of those specific cities; the second part of the hyphenated numerator mirrors the 5th through 8th digits of the routing number with leading zeros removed.^[28]

Cheque truncation was introduced in 2004 with the passing of the 'Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act' (or Check 21 Act), this allowed the creation of electronic substitute checks to replace the physical cheques saving costs and processing time.

Cheque Fraud

Cheques have been a tempting target for criminals to steal money or goods from the drawer, payee or the banks. A number of measures have been introduced to combat fraud over the years. These range from things like writing a cheque so its hard for to be altered after it is drawn to mechanisms like crossing a cheque so that it can only be paid into another banks account providing some traceability. However, the inherent security weaknesses of cheques as a payment method, such as having only the signature as the main authentication method and not knowing if funds will be received until the clearing cycle to complete, have made them vulnerable to a number of different types of fraud;

Embezzlement

Taking advantage of the float period (cheque kiting) to delay the notice of non-existent funds. This often involves trying to convince a merchant or other recipient, hoping the recipient will not suspect that the cheque will not clear, giving time for the fraudster to disappear.

Forgery

Sometimes, forgery is the method of choice in defrauding a bank. One form of forgery involves the use of a victim's legitimate cheques, that have either been stolen and then cashed, or altering a cheque that has been legitimately written to the perpetrator, by adding words and/or digits in order to inflate the amount.

Identity theft

Since cheques include significant personal information (name, account number, signature and in some countries driver's license number, the address and/or phone number of the account holder), they can be used for fraud, specifically identity theft. In the USA and Canada until recent years the social security number was sometimes included on checks. The practice was discontinued as identity theft became widespread.

Dishonoured cheques

A dishonoured cheque cannot be redeemed for its value and is worthless; they are also known as an RDI (returned deposit item), or NSF (non-sufficient funds) cheque. Cheques are usually dishonoured because the drawer's account has been frozen or limited, or because there are insufficient funds in the drawer's account when the cheque was redeemed. A cheque drawn on an account with insufficient funds is said to have bounced and may be called a rubber cheque.^[29] Banks will typically charge customers for issuing a dishonoured cheque, and in some jurisdictions such an act is a criminal action. A drawer may also issue a stop on a cheque, instructing the financial institution not to honour a particular cheque.

In England and Wales, they are typically returned marked "Refer to Drawer" - an instruction to contact the person issuing the cheque for an explanation as to why the cheque was not honoured. This wording was brought in after a bank was successfully sued for libel after returning a cheque with the phrase "Insufficient Funds" after making an error - the court ruled that as there were sufficient funds the statement was demonstrably false and damaging to the reputation of the person issuing the cheque. Despite the use of this revised phrase, successful libel lawsuits brought against banks by individuals remained for similar errors.^[30]

However, in Scotland, a cheque acts as an assignment of the amount of money to the payee. As such, if a cheque is dishonoured in Scotland, what funds are present in the bank account are "attached" and frozen, until either sufficient funds are credited to the account to pay the cheque, the drawer recovers the cheque and hands it into the bank, or the drawer obtains a letter from the payee that he has no further interest in the cheque.

A cheque may also be dishonored because it is stale or not cashed within a "void after date." Many cheques have an explicit notice printed on the cheque that it is void after some period of days. In the United States, banks are not required by the Uniform Commercial Code to honour a stale dated-cheque, which is a cheque presented six months after it is dated.^[11]

Lock box

Typically when customers pay bills with cheques (like gas or water bills), the mail will go to a 'lock box' at the post office. There a bank will pick up all the mail, sort it, open it, take the cheques and remittance advice out, process it all through electronic machinery, and post the funds to the proper accounts. In modern systems, taking advantage of the Check 21 Act, as in the U.S., many cheques are transformed into electronic objects and the paper is destroyed.

See also

• Allonge
• Blank cheque
• Certified check
• E-check
• Labour cheque
• Negotiable cow
• Substitute check
• Traveler's cheque

Notes

References

External links

• Bank and account identifiers on U.S. cheques: ABA / Routing / Transit
• Cheque and Credit Clearing Company - the organisation that manages the cheque clearing system in the UK
• Cheques found in the Cairo Geniza from the 12th century
• Information on cheques in the UK from APACS
• Malaysia Introduces New Cheque Clearing System
• Bills of Exchange Act 1882
• Cheques Act 1957
• Cheques Act 1992