NACHA, the electronic payments association, has launched the Deposited Cheque Truncation (DCT) pilot as Bridge Community Bank initiated the first transactions under the pilot rules. Mount Vernon Bank and Community Savings Bank acted as the receiving banks for the first transactions, and Aptys Solutions served as the payments solution provider for Bridge Community Bank.
The DCT pilot enables financial institutions to truncate low-value consumer cheques and collect them as automated clearing house (ACH) debits. Responding to an industry need to handle deposited cheques more efficiently and at a lower cost than standard cheque processing, the pilot relies on existing infrastructure, using the ACH Network’s truncated cheque (TRC) Standard Entry Class Code.
“Financial institutions have long been interested in implementing more efficient procedures that will streamline the cheque process, and the DCT Pilot will explore one important alternative,” said Janet Estep, NACHA president and chief executive officer (CEO). “DCT literally could transform the collection of low-value consumer cheques by removing them from the payment cycle at the point of deposit, and the pilot will assess DCT’s benefits moving forward.”