Under CTS the physical cheques are retained at the presenting bank level & do not move to the paying banks.
In case a bank customer desires, banks can provide images of cheques duly authenticated. In case, however, a bank customer desires to see / or get the physical cheque, it would need to be sourced from the presenting bank, for which a request should be made to his / her bank.
An element of cost / or charge may also be involved for the purpose. To meet legal requirements, the presenting banks which truncate the cheques need to preserve the physical instruments for a period of 10 (Ten) years.
How would be uniqueness of a physical cheque be captured imparted to the cheque image in CTS?
Cheque Truncation System (CTS) in India mandates the use of prescribed image specifications only. Images that do not meet the specifications are rejected. As the payments are made on the basis of the images, it is essential to ensure the quality of the images. To ensure only images of requisite quality move in the CTS processing cycle, there is a rigorous quality check process at the level of the Capture Systems and the Clearing House Interface (of the presenting bank).
The solution encompasses IQA (Image Quality Assessment) at different levels. The presenting bank is required to perform the IQA during the capture itself.
Further IQA is done at the gateway before onward transmission to clearing house. The images are captured with digital signatures of the presenting bank and thereafter transmitted to the Clearing House and then to the paying banks.
Further, the paying banks, if not satisfied with the image quality or for any other reason, can ask for the physical instrument to facilitate payment processing.
Further, the new cheque standard CTS-2010 prescribes certain mandatory and optional security features to be available on cheques, which will also add to the uniqueness of the images.
Image specifications in CTS..!
Imaging of cheques can be based on various technology options. The cheque images can be Black and White, Gray Scale or / Coloured. These have their associated advantages & disadvantages.
Black and White images are light in terms of image-size.But do not reveal all the subtle features that are there in the cheques. Coloured images are ideal but increase storage and network bandwidth requirements.
Gray Scale images are mid way. CTS in India uses a combination of Gray Scale and Black and White images. There are three (3) images of each cheques that need to be taken - front Gray Scale, front Black & White and back Black & White.
Images of cheques taken..!
Images of cheques are taken using scanners. Scanners also function like photo-copiers by reflecting the light passed through a narrow passage on to the document.
Tiny sensors measure the reflection from each point along the strip of light.
Reflectance measurements of each dot is called a pixel. Images are classified as black & white, gray scale or / colour based on how the pixels are converted into digital values.
For getting a gray scale image the pixels are mapped onto a range of gray shades between black & white. The entire image of the original document gets mapped as some shade of gray, lighter or / darker, depending on the colour of the source. In the case of black and white images, such mapping is made only to two colours based on the range of values of contrasts. A black & white image is also called a binary image.
Src: RBI
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