THE newly-introduced centralised clearing system is causing a huge embarrassment to account holders of various banks. Over the last couple of months, two payee account cheques written by me have been returned stating, “Drawer’s signatures differ”.

It appears that the person at the centralised clearing facility is not a handwriting expert as he/she returns the cheque if one of the 20 letters in the long signature does not exactly match with the specimen signatures.

The worst part is that even payee cheques are being dishonoured. Previously, when clearing was done at the branch level, the teller used to call the account holder to confirm the authenticity of the cheque if any discrepancy was found.

Unfortunately, this courtesy is not extended by the centralised clearing facility. On the one hand, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) wants all transactions to be made via cheques, while, on the other, banks are creating problems for their customers by introducing a centralised clearing system without having a handwriting expert.

For an account holder it is a matter of huge embarrassment when his/her cheque is dishonoured. I urge the Pakistan Banking Council and presidents of various local banks to streamline their respective centralised clearing systems. Cheques should not be dishonoured on trivial grounds and the writer of the cheque should be contacted in case there is any doubt.

Prof (Dr) Mohammad Perwaiz Iqbal
Lahore.

Published in Dawn, August 5th, 2021