KARACHI: To combat the spread of Covid-19 pandemic by limiting personal interactions and to provide ease to customers, banks and micro finance banks (MFBs) have been allowed to provide Doorstep Cheque Collection Facility, a circular issued by the State Bank of Pakistan said on Saturday.

According to the circular, banks and MFBs may provide the service under which arrangements are being made to collect cheques from registered addresses of the customers upon their request.

The banks and MFBs can also offer Drop Box Cheque Collection Facility under which customers may drop their cheques in drop boxes of their banks, installed in selected branches.

The banks may provide Direct Cheque Deposit Facility under which a crossed cheque may be presented by the payee directly at the paying or drawing bank, instead of their bank branches as per the existing practice.

Before debiting their customer’s account the paying or drawee bank must take all necessary precautions, not limited to customer call-back or multifactor authentication systems, to verify the authenticity of the instrument and verification of their respective customer.

Similarly, before crediting the customer account, the beneficiary bank must ensure the authenticity of the customer’s credentials.

According to the circular, banks may allow their corporate/priority customers to send them the scanned images of the cheques along with relevant details of the beneficiaries either through registered emails or through mobile apps of their banks to push funds from their accounts to the payee bank.

However, such arrangements must be duly agreed with the customer under proper terms and conditions along with complete disclosure of risks and liabilities.

Published in Dawn, March 29th, 2020