Clearing Process

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Clearing process

Clearing house
The place where the exchange of instruments occurs and the claims are settled. It is a voluntary association of banks under the management of a bank where the settlement accounts are maintained. Wherever RBI has its office (and a banking department), the clearing house is managed by it. In the absence of an office of the RBI, the clearing house is managed by the State Bank of India, its associate banks and in a few cases by public sector banks.

The clearing infrastructure is designed to address the movement of instruments between the presenting and drawee branches. Each member bank is represented in the clearing house by its service branch which collects all the instruments from various branches and consolidates them for presentation to all the banks in the clearing house. Similarly, it receives and distributes among its branches all the instruments drawn upon its branches by other banks in the clearing house.

Clearing Houses in India


There are 860 Bankers clearing houses in India, of which 840 are managed by State Bank of India and its Associates, 14 by Reserve Bank of India, and the rest 6 by nationalised banks . Reserve Bank of India manages 14 clearing houses at Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Bhubaneshwar, Mumbai, Calcutta, Chennai, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kanpur, Nagpur, New Delhi, Patna and Thiruvananthapuram.

Clearing process steps


1.The deposit of a cheque in a bank. 2. The cheque (along with other cheques) is delivered to the bank/branch where it is drawn. 3. The cheque is passed for payment if the funds are available and the banker is satisfied about the genuineness of the instrument. 4.The cheques that are unpaid are returned to the presenting bank through another clearing called the Return Clearing. 5.The realisation of the funds occurs after the completion of return clearing and by the absence of an unpaid cheque

Settlement of Funds
The settlement of funds in clearing occurs at several levels. The aggregate amount or value of cheques presented by a bank on other banks represents the claim by that bank on other banks. Similar claims are made by all the banks on every other bank in the clearing. A net settlement is arrived at the clearing house and the debit or credit position of the bank is determined. These are booked in their current accounts maintained by the settling bank. This represents the inter- bank settlement.

The settlement of funds between the service branch and the branch concerned represents the transfer of funds to the branch level. The payment process is completed only when the funds are debited from the drawer's account and credited to the payee's account. This occurs after the completion of the return clearing mentioned earlier

Settlement process in clearing

Collection of outstation instruments


In this case, the cheques are sent by post for collection to the representative branch or correspondent branch for presentation in the clearing house in the outstation centre. Once the cheque is realised, the proceeds are remitted to the original presenting bank for credit to the customer account. This leads to a significant delay in the payment of these cheques and there is considerable uncertainty regarding the time of realisation.

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