Safeguard yourself from cheque frauds with Positive Pay

There have been several cases wherein people become a victim of cheque fraud. Several businesses, identity thieves and fraudsters create counterfeit cheques or forge details in order to withdraw funds with ill means. To minimise the level of frauds that involve one's cheque to the bank and safeguard the same, private lender ICICI Bank has introduced the feature of Positive Pay in their iMobile application. Positive Pay is nothing but a fraud detecting platform or tool, offered by the Cash Management Department (CMS) of several banks. In India, ICICI Bank was the first bank to absorb this feature into its package of services. 

What is Positive Pay?

A fraud detecting tool, the Positive Pay is a service which matches an individual's cheque number, cheque date, payee name, account number, amount etc with the front as well as the reverse side of the cheque, before it is handed over to the beneficiary. This is compared against the list of cheques previously authorised and issued by the individual or issuer of the check. 

In simpler terms, the system cross checks all the details with regard to the cheque before the fund can be en-cashed by the beneficiary. If there is a slight mismatch, the said bank will approach the cheque issuer for a re-examination of the cheque details.

Incorporating the Positive Pay, ICICI bamk now facilitates the benefit of clearing cheques through images from the issuer instead of asking for a physical copy. this lowers down the risk of misplacement of the said cheque or frauds related to it. 
 

With ICICI Bank, the cheque images can be sent to the bank branch through their iMobile application where the issuer needs to go to cheque book services. The cheque images, as well as the information, will be validated only on the next working day of the bank branch. Additionally, with this system, the process of clearing cheques is accelerated. However, images cannot replace the cheques as with regard to the norms set by the Reserve Bank of India, a collecting bank needs to get hold of the physical copy of the cheque.