The Bahrain Cheque Truncation System (BCTS), which was launched in May by Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB), is helping banks boost their efficiency and speed of the cheque clearing system in the Kingdom, said a senior CBB official.

"BCTS facilitates bank customers to have their cheques cleared and obtain their funds on the same day; if presented to a bank on any business day (Sunday to Thursday)," explained Ahmed Buhijji, the director of Banking Services Directorate of CBB.

"Customers who deposit their cheques before 11.30 a.m. on a normal business day can clear their checques free of charge by 3.00 p.m. on the same day," he added.

The BCTS, he said, offers customers a more secure and convenient service besides providing reference documents for bank customers to follow-up the status of their cheques.

"When a customer deposits a cheque, a bank provides the customer with a deposit slip generated by the BCTS. This deposit slip indicates the time the cheque was deposited and its unique reference number."

"When a bank returns any unpaid cheque also, the customer receives a cheque return advice generated from the BCTS from his bank. This cheque return advice clarifies the reason for this return."

Buhijji said the CBB is closely monitoring the operations of BCTS to ensure its expected efficiency and robustness is not compromised.-TradeArabia News Service