cheque payment

A cheque (or check — USA) is a negotiable instrument[1] instructing a financial institution to pay a specific amount of a specific currency from a specified demand account held in the maker/depositor's name with that institution. Both the maker and payee may be natural persons or legal entities.The most common spellings of the word (in all its senses) were check, checque, and cheque from the 1600s through the 1900s.[2] Since the 1800s, the spelling cheque has become standard for the financial sense of the word in British English (across the Commonwealth countries), while only check is retained in its other senses, thus distinguishing the two definitions in writing.[3] Sources indicate that cheque comes from the Arabic ṣakk, which is a written document or letter or note of credit Muslim merchants adopted to carry out their trading. The concept of ṣakk appeared in European documents around 1220, mostly in areas neighbouring Muslim Spain and North Africa; south France and Italy.[4]
On the other hand, check remains in use for the financial sense in American English.
The ancient Romans are believed[5] to have used an early form of cheque known as praescriptiones in the first century BC. During the 3rd century AD, banks in Persia and other territories in the Persian Empire under the Sassanid Empire issued letters of credit known as Ṣakks.
Between 1118 and 1307, it is believed the Knights Templar introduced a cheque system for pilgrims travelling to the Holy Land or across Europe.[6] The pilgrims would deposit funds at one chapter house, then withdraw it from another chapter at their destination by showing a draft of their claim. These drafts would be written in a very complicated code only the Templars could decipher. The Knights adopted it most likely from the Muslims who are known to have used the cheque or ṣakk system since the times of Harun al-Rashid (9th century).
In the 9th century, a Muslim businessman could cash an early form of the cheque in China drawn on sources in Baghdad,[7] a tradition that was significantly strengthened in the 13th and 14th centuries, during the Mongol Empire. Indeed, fragments found in the Cairo Geniza indicate that in the 12th century cheques remarkably similar to our own were in use, only smaller to save costs on the paper. They contain a sum to be paid and then the order "May so and so pay the bearer such and such an amount". The date and name of the issuer are also apparent.
The cheque had its origins in the ancient banking system, in which bankers would issue orders at the request of their customers, to pay money to identified payees. Such an order was referred to as a bill of exchange. The use of bills of exchange facilitated trade by eliminating the need for merchants to carry large quantities of currency (e.g. gold) to purchase goods and services. A draft is a bill of exchange which is not payable on demand of the payee. (However, draft in the U.S. Uniform Commercial Code today means any bill of exchange, whether payable on demand or at a later date; if payable on demand it is a "demand draft", or if drawn on a financial institution, a chequeCheques generally contain:
place of issue cheque number date of issue payee amount of currency signature of the drawer routing / account number in MICR format - in the U.S., the routing number is a nine-digit number in which the first 4 digits identifies the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank's cheque-processing center. This is followed by digits 5 through 8, identifying the specific bank served by that cheque-processing center. Digit 9 is a verification digit, computed using a complex algorithm of the previous 8 digits. The account number is assigned independently by the various banks.[8] fractional routing number (U.S. only) - also known as the transit number, consists of a denominator mirroring the first 4 digits of the routing number. And a hyphenated numerator, also known as the ABA number, in which the first part is a city code (1-49), if the account is in one of 49 specific cities, or a state code (50-99) if it is not in one of those specific cities; the second part of the hyphenated numerator mirrors the 5th through 8th digits of the routing number with leading zeros removed.[9] A cheque is generally valid indefinitely or for six months after the date of issue unless otherwise indicated; this varies depending on where the cheque is drawn[citation needed]. In Australia, for example, it is fifteen months [10]. Legal amount (amount in words) is also highly recommended but not strictly required.
In the USA and some other countries, cheques contain a memo line where the purpose of the cheque can be indicated as a convenience without affecting the official parts of the cheque. This is not used in Britain where such notes are often written on the reverse side.
In the United States, cheques are governed by Article 3 of the Uniform Commercial Code.
An order check – the most common form in the United States – is payable only to the named payee or his or her endorsee, as it usually contains the language "Pay to the order of (name)." A bearer check is payable to anyone who is in possession of the document: this would be the case if the cheque does not state a payee, or is payable to "bearer" or to "cash" or "to the order of cash", or if the cheque is payable to someone who is not a person or legal entity, e.g. if the payee line is marked "Happy Birthday". A counter check is a bank cheque given to customers who have run out of cheques or whose cheques are not yet available. It is often left blank, and is used for purposes of withdrawal. In the United States, the terminology for a cheque historically varied with the type of financial institution on which it is drawn. In the case of a savings and loan association it was a negotiable order of withdrawal; if a credit union it was a share draft. Check as such were associated with chartered commercial banks. However, common usage has increasingly conformed to more recent versions of Article 3, where check means any or all of these negotiable instruments. Certain types of cheques drawn on a government agency, especially payroll cheques, may also be referred to as a payroll warrant.
Parties to regular cheques generally include a maker or drawer, the depositor writing a cheque; a drawee, the financial institution where the cheque can be presented for payment; and a payee, the entity to whom the maker issues the cheque. The drawer drafts or draws a cheque, which is also called cutting a cheque, especially in the United States.
Ultimately, there is also at least one endorsee which would typically be the financial institution servicing the payee's account, or in some circumstances may be a third party to whom the payee owes or wishes to give money.
A payee that accepts a cheque will typically deposit it in an account at the payee's bank, and have the bank process the cheque. In some cases, the payee will take the cheque to a branch of the drawee bank, and cash the cheque there. If a cheque is refused at the drawee bank (or the drawee bank returns the cheque to the bank that it was deposited at) because there are insufficient funds for the cheque to clear, it is said that the cheque has bounced. Once a cheque is approved and all appropriate accounts involved have been credited, the cheque is stamped with some kind of cancellation mark, such as a "paid" stamp. The cheque is now a cancelled cheque. Cancelled cheques are placed in the account holder's file. The account holder can request a copy of a cancelled cheque as proof of a payment.
This is known as the cheque clearing cycle. Cheques are losing favour[citation needed], as they can be lost or go astray within the cycle, or be delayed if further verification is needed in the case of suspected fraud. A cheque may thus bounce some time after it has been deposited. Following a report by a working group of the Office of Fair Trading] in 2006 [11] maximum times for the cheque clearing cycle for most banks will be introduced in UK from November 2007.[12] The date the credit appears on the recipient's account (usually the day of deposit) will be designated 'T'. At 'T + 2' (2 business days afterwards) the value will count for calculation of credit interest or overdraft interest on the recipient's account. At 'T + 4' one will be able to withdraw funds (though this will often happen earlier, at the bank's discretion). 'T + 6' is the last day that a cheque can bounce without the recipient's permission - this is known as 'certainty of fate'. Before the introduction of this standard, the only way to know the 'fate' of a cheque has been 'Special Presentation', which would probably involve a fee, where the drawee bank contacts the payee bank to see if the payee has that money at that time. 'Special Presentation' needs to be stated at the time of depositing in the cheque.
When a maker directs the maker's bank to deduct the funds for the amount of a cheque from the maker's account, thus guaranteeing funds will be available for the cheque to clear, and the bank indicates this fact by making a notation on the face of the cheque (technically called an acceptance), the instrument is then referred to as a certified cheque.
In Europe, in the few countries where cheques are still being used, and in the past also in other European countries, (but this has stopped some 20 years ago), a drawer could present a cheque guarantee card with the cheque when paying a retailer. If the retailer wrote the card number on the back of the cheque, the cheque was signed in the retailer's presence, and the retailer verifies the signature on the cheque against the signature on the card, then the cheque cannot be cancelled and payment cannot be refused. Those guarantee cards are out of use in Central Europe for about 15 years.
A cheque used to pay wages due is referred to as a payroll cheque. Payroll cheques issued by the military to soldiers, or by some other government entities to their employees, beneficiants, and creditors, are referred to as warrants.
A traveller's cheque is designed to allow the person signing it to make an unconditional payment to someone else as a result of paying the account holder for that privilege. Traveller's cheques can usually be replaced if lost or stolen, they are often used by people on vacation instead of cash. The use of credit or debit cards has, however, begun to replace the traveller's cheque as the standard for vacation money, with an increase in usage by spenders due to ease of use, and an increase of businesses preferring transfers of this kind over traveller's cheques. This has resulted in some businesses to no longer accepting traveller's cheques as currency.
A cheque sold by a post office or merchant such as a grocery for payment by a third party for a customer is referred to as a money order or postal order.
A cheque issued by a bank on its own account for a customer for payment to a third party is called a cashier's cheque, a treasurer's cheque, a bank cheque, or a bank draft. A cheque issued by a bank but drawn on an account with another bank is a teller's cheque.
In addition to issuing cashier's and teller's cheques, banks often sell money orders, and traveller's cheques are usually purchased from banks.
Some public assistance programs such as the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, or Aid to Families with Dependent Children make vouchers available to their beneficiaries, which are good up to a certain monetary amount for purchase of grocery items deemed eligible under the particular programme. The voucher can be deposited like any other cheque by a participating supermarket or other approved business.
Paper cheques have a major advantage to the maker over debit card transactions in that the maker's bank will release the money several days later. Paying with a cheque and making a deposit before it clears the maker's bank is called "kiting" or "floating" and is generally illegal in the United States, but rarely enforced unless the maker uses multiple chequing accounts with multiple institutions to increase the delay or to steal the funds.