Overview

• Phase one began on October 4 with cheques deposited 10 a.m.–4 p.m. scanned for instant processing, hourly interbank settlements from 11 a.m., and paying-bank responses due by 7 p.m. or else auto-approval.
• Branches report inadequate staff training, poor cheque image quality, and system integration and readability failures that trigger rejections or fallback to older schedules.
• To ease the transition, the clearing window was extended to 11 p.m., beyond the usual evening cutoff cited by bank officials.
• An executive at a Mumbai-based NBFC said roughly Rs 20 crore in presented cheques were debited from customers but not yet credited to the firm, while customers posted multiple delay complaints on X.
• Overall impact remains contained as cheque usage has declined since 2019 and many payments have shifted to NEFT, RTGS, and UPI.