National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) is to pilot use of standardized cheques in all banks of Ethiopia beginning from the end of November 2015, Addis Fortune reported.

The standardized cheques are identical in appearance, except for logos of individual banks. They have security features which will make them difficult to forge.

NBE for the purpose of tackling forgery and speeding up clearing and settlement processes has taken the initiative of issuing the standardized cheques in 2013.

The long process of clearing and settling post-dated cheques will no more be in place when the standardized cheques are introduced. There will be a digital platform for financial transactions that can be made with a simple swipe at the scanner, communicating the messege via an integrated network developed by ET-Switch. Thus there will no longer be physical transfer of cheques.

NBE has awarded the contract to Madrass Security Printers, an Indian company with 25 years’ of experience in security printing.

The Bank has begun training mid-level and senor bank managers on Wednesday 4, 2015, on the usage and security issues of the standardized cheques.

Source: Addis Fortune