To increase customer safety in cheque payments and reduce instances of fraud occurring on account of tampering of cheque leaves, the RBI has decided to introduce a mechanism of Positive Pay for all cheques of value ₹50,000 and above.
Under this mechanism, cheques will be processed for payment by the drawee bank based on information passed on by its customer at the time of issuance of cheque. This measure will cover approximately 20% and 80% of total cheques issued in the country by volume and value, respectively.
Operational guidelines for the purpose will be issued, the RBI said.
Under the Positive Pay system, an account holder shares the details of issued cheque to bank like Cheque Number, Cheque date, Payee name, Account number, Amount etc along with an image of the front and reverse side of the cheque, before handing it over to the beneficiary.
