All remaining 18,000 bank branches to be under CTS by Sep: RBI

As part of further improving, speeding up and fool-proofing the payments and settlement systems, the Reserve Bank on Friday said all the 18,000-odd branches which are outside the centralised clearing system called cheque truncation system will come under it by September. The cheque truncation system (CTS) is in use since 2010 and covers around 1,50,000 bank branches across three cheque processing grids. All the erstwhile 1,219 non-CTS clearing houses have since been migrated to the CTS now. Since around 18,000 more branches are still outside any formal clearing arrangement, to bring in operational efficiency in paper-based clearing and make the process of collection and settlement of cheques faster resulting in better customer service, it is proposed to bring all such branches under CTS by September, RBI said in a statement.