Managers of the Codeline and Check Clearing System say bank customers countrywide should pressure their banks to ensure they are credited with the value of their local cheques within 48-hours.

Though cheques within Accra and Tema have for sometime now been cleared in less than the 48-hour period by the Ghana Interbank Payment and Settlement Systems, there have been several complaints the banks have not credited the accounts of their customers within the stipulated period.

The 48-hour clearance has now been extended countrywide and GhIPSS says the recalcitrant banks should comply and give their customers value in good time.

General Manager in charge of Business Development at the GhIPSS, Archie Hesse, said the exercise would ensure efficiency in the system.

“We want cheques to be cleared faster so that customers and businesses will receive their cheques quicker and [this] in turn will benefit the nation as a whole,” he said.

Cheques throughout the country will now clear in two days, as the Codeline and Cheque Clearing system (CCC) becomes operational nationwide from January 15, the Ghana Inter-bank Payment and Settlement Systems (GhIPSS) has said.

Cheques usually clear between three and four days within the Accra/Tema area, and one week or two weeks or even more for cheques coming from the rural and peri-urban areas.

"However with the implementation of the electronic cheque throughout the Country, cheques will clear very fast, in two days regardless of which part of the country it is paid," the General Manager in charge of Project and Business Development at GhIPSS Archie Hesse said.

"This great achievement will drastically cut back on the delays associated with the payment for transactions using cheques," he added.

GhIPSS began the implementation of the electronic clearing system, also known as CCC, on a pilot basis within the Accra-Tema area and, after a successful run, is extending the system throughout the country.

Officials of GhIPSS say the introduction of the electronic cheque clearing system will bring confidence in the use of cheques because the delay associated with getting value for cheques will now be a thing of the past.

Mr Hesse said salaries and other payments that were unduly delayed because of the long process in clearing cheques, will no longer happen.

Under the new system, when a customer pays in a cheque at the bank, the bank will not have to physically carry the cheque from the bank to a clearing centre. Instead, the cheque will simply be passed through a machine which will capture the image of the cheque and send it electronically to the paying bank, which will in turn approve the cheque electronically and after that the account will be credited.

He advised people who issue cheques when they do not have money in the account to desist because now the clearing will happen almost immediately.

 Mr Hesse said in the near future, cheques will be cleared within 24 hours. — GNA