Cheques have historically constituted a major segment of non cash payment instruments in Ghana. The Bank of Ghana (Bank) continues to play a catalytic role of ensuring efficiency, reliability and timeliness in the clearing of cheques. In the late 1990s, the Bank introduced the Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR) technology and the standardization of paper payment instruments to enable the semi-automation of cheque clearing in the Accra Clearing zone in 1997.
In order to comply with provisions of the Bills of Exchange Act, 1961 (Act 55) current clearing systems require that the cheques be physically moved from the collecting bank to the paying bank as part of the clearing process.
This requirement however increases manual intervention, the cost of handling and the length of the clearing cycle. It also delays the availability of collected funds to the customer and builds up float in the banking system. The problems associated with the current clearing systems and the determination of the Bank to improve cheques clearing led to the decision to migrate to Cheque Codeline Clearing with Cheque Truncation (CCC) under new Rules published by the Bank.
