Cheques

Reducing Cheque Fraud

Cheques need to be verified and cleared as quickly, efficiently and accurately as possible. With most countries adopting CTS system, cheque verification and clearing process is carried out through cheque images being sent in by the receiving bank or financial institution.

In recent years, Cheque fraud has become a growing issue of concern in some countries. Advancing digital technology has made it easier for counterfeiters and fraudsters to acquire blank cheque stationery and the magnetic ink (MICR) printers and fonts to recreate the cheques that are read by bank scanners.

Watermarking, holographs and other security features may help to deter such fraud, though eventually the fraudsters and counterfeiters would be able to acquire similar technology as well. Thus, we are left with the crucial question - how can cheques be enhanced to make them difficult to be tampered with?

Securing your Cheques

Whether it’s blank cheque stationery or printed cheques (cheques with printed details), the use of Qryptal’s Secure Codes for cheques helps to substantially reduce this type of fraud.

Simply adding Qryptal’s Secure Code on cheques makes the cheques tamperproof as the code can only be generated by the bank or its authorized customers. All the key details of each cheque are securely signed and sealed inside Qryptal’s Secure Code.

Qryptal’s system is flexible in terms of the data that can be encapsulated in the Secure Code. This includes the following:

Cheque number and account details, as typically indicated in the footer
Beneficiary
Amount
Name of the Signatories
Additional details that could be useful for automated processing e.g Company name etc

Integrating Qryptal for Cheque Printing

Adding Qryptal’s Secure Code to Cheque’s is easy. It is added automatically as part of the printing process, just as image logos are added to cheque stationery:

The Qryptal Generator does all the work to encapsulate the data and return the Secure Code image to be incorporated on the cheques. It’s a simple API call to get started. Find out more on our Technology page

Secure Cheque Validation with Qryptal

Cheques that have been secured with Qryptal can easily be validated with Qryptal’s Validation Server as part of the Automated Inward Clearing process.

Qryptal’s Validation Server does the following:

Locates the Secure Code on the cheque images that are presented
Validates the Secure Code and confirms that it has not been tampered with
Extracts the information in the Code and returns it in a structured manner for further processing
It can also validate the extracted information with the information printed on the cheque via OCR to check for information tampering.