The concept of High value cheque is going to change. Generally, any cheque of one lakh and above could take part in high value clearing if deposited within 11.00 am. The advantage was that the cheque got cleared the same day unlike other non value ones that took more than a day to get cleared. Reserve Bank of India has raised the bar for high value cheques. From 2nd, May 2009 only cheques of rupees five lakhs and above would be considered as high value and get same day clearing. Things will change even more post 1st, August 2009 when only cheques of rupees ten lakhs and above will be considered as High Value ones and get cleared that very day.
RBI has announced these new rules in order to promote RTGS –Real Time Gross Settlement and NEFT-National Electronic Funds Transfer. Earlier RTGS was compulsory for one crore and above settlements now it will be compulsory for small sum of money too. This will promote paper less transactions and faster transactions. The money will get transferred within a span of 2 hours. The best part is unlike high value cheques each and every bank of India can initiate RTGS as long as they have the IFSC code.