Cheque Imaging: How the UK has learned from US mistakes

Although the US was quick to adopt cheque imaging over a decade ago, they were slow to add the technology on their back-end systems in order to exchange images between financial institutions in order to settle cheques’ faster than they had been able to previously.

The risks involved with the US approach to cheque imaging remained relatively high until recently. However, the UK’s planned Cheque Imaging system will carry a far lower risk, due to UK authorities making substantial improvements to the system since studying the cheque imaging method used by the US, before it is rolled out across the UK in October.

The US endured a lengthy five-year migration period from paper-to-image based cheque clearing, but the UK anticipate the transition and implementation of the new cheque imaging system to be much quicker and smoother, with the entirety of the finance industry following suit by late 2018. The UK will roll out the new cheque imaging system at the end of October 2017.

Sources:

https://www.chequeandcredit.co.uk/blog/cheque-imaging-learning-us-experience-31-august-2017

https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/30319/uk-to-roll-out-image-based-cheque-clearing-system