The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday said all the 18,000-odd branches which are outside the centralized clearing system called the cheque truncation system  (CTS)will come under it by September.

The cheque truncation system (CTS) helps further improving, speeding up and fool-proofing the payments and settlement. It is in use since 2010 and covers around 1,50,000 bank branches across three cheque processing grids.

RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said, ?The coverage of the Cheque Truncation System (CTS) has been extended to all legacy clearing houses by September 2020. It is, however, noticed that about 18,000 bank branches are still outside any formal clearing arrangement.?

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. Separate operational guidelines will be issued within a month, it added. The RBI also said it will set up a 24x7 helpline for digital payments services to secure them more against fraud and phishing.

The RBI's payment systems vision document envisages setting up a 24x7 helpline for addressing customer queries in respect of various digital payments, which, apart from building trust and confidence, will also reduce expenditure on both financial and human resources.

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