In a move to counter the fraudsters who take advantage of the cheque system, the RBI has announced the CTS format of cheques, Cheque Truncation System, according to which the non-CTS 2010 standard cheques would no longer be valid after December 31. However, noticing that the representations have still been issuing the old format of cheques, the deadline which was earlier set to Dec 31 was extended till March 31 2013.

The new format of checques have better security features that will allow safer transactions than the earlier non-CTS cheques.

RBI mentioned in a statement today that, "Taking into consideration representations, it has been decided to extend the time up to March 31, 2013 for banks to ensure withdrawal of non-CTS 2010 Standard cheques and replace them with CTS-2010 standard cheques."

With the uniform security features of the CTS 2010 standard cheques, there would be fewer risks of transactions through cheques and with the fixed field placement specifications aid in straight-through-processing by using optical or image character recognition technology.

The modalities, charges wherever applicable if any are not yet finalized and would be mentioned soon, the RBI concluded.

(AW-Anil)