Is your cheque book valid?

All banks and other establishments have started accepting only machine readable cheques that have security bars as per a UAE Central Bank regulation.

by

Nissar Hoath

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Published: Wed 5 Jan 2011, 8:32 AM

Last updated: Thu 19 Jan 2023, 1:49 PM

The Central Bank introduced the new MRC in a bid to curb embezzlement and forgery. These are specially designed with electronic bars and can be sorted out by machines much faster than earlier manual clearance system.

According to the market in the capital, the financial institutions, government organisations and private companies no more accept old cheques as the grace period to surrender and replace them with MRCs has expired on January 1.


However, security cheques that were issued and deposited against, for example, car loans or credit cards before the grace period are still being accepted.

“We are no more accepting cheques other than the new machine readable ones. However, the cheques that were issued earlier, say a year ago, for security are still being accepted by banks. For instance, our customer has sought a car loan from another bank a year ago and he deposited a security cheque. We still accept the old cheque he submitted for the security,” Habib Al Balushi, a senior banker at National Bank of Oman, told Khaleej Times.


He said he believed many people might have failed to surrender their old cheques and get the new ones, and most probably the only old cheques would be those deposited as security before the grace period.

About NBO accountholders, Al Balushi, said: “We have sent notices to all our customers and almost all have obtained the MRCs. Especially our regular customers who are always in contact were the first ones to get the cheques with new features. There might be a few who hardly use a cheque that have not replaced them. We also have a large number of current accountholders who do not use cheques at all.”

Utility departments have also stopped accepting the old cheque. An official at an Abu Dhabi Distribution Company (ADDC) billing centre in the capital also said they stopped accepting old cheques from January 1.

He said: “We had received an in-house circularly earlier advising us not to entertain old cheques from January, which is now being implemented across ADDC business centres.”

Meanwhile, private companies like rent-a-car dealers have also welcomed the move of coming up with smart cheques that would help curb forgery.

According to an official from a leading rent-a-car company, the initiative and its implementation would be a great relief for the market, including their own businesses, as it will minimise forgery.

“It will reduce the incidents of cheques that are forged and bounced. It is good news for the industry that now only electronic and smart cheques will be issued and exchanged,” said Jaber Weliyakath, chief accountant at Thrifty in Abu Dhabi.

About the grace period, he said they were contacting with their bank to check whether to accept or reject old cheques. “We have not got any notice from our bank about this. However, we will check with the bank,” Weliyakath explained.


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