The second phase of the new framework that the Reserve Bank of India was going to introduce to speed up cheque clearing has been postponed. Phase-2 was supposed to come into effect from January 3, 2026. In this phase, banks were required to sanction or cancel cheques within three hours of receiving the image of the cheque.
However, in a circular issued on December 24, the RBI said that Phase-2 of the Continuous Clearing and Settlement system has been postponed until further orders.
Along with this, the central bank has also made some changes in the timing of cheque processing. According to the new guidelines, the time limit for depositing cheques will be from 9 am to 3 pm. And banks will be able to decide on sanctioning or cancelling cheques between 9 am and 7 pm.
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What changed earlier
RBI introduced the Continuous Clearing and Settlement system under the Cheque Truncation System, so that cheque clearing becomes faster and smoother. In this system, there is no need to send cheques from one bank to another. Rather, checks are settled through digital images and electronic information.
Phase-1, which was launched on October 4, 2025, has a single window per day. Banks start sending the image and MICR information of the cheque to the clearing house as soon as they receive it. There is no need to wait for a specific batch. After receiving the image of the cheque, the bank verifies it and sends an approval or rejection electronically. If there is no response within the specified time, the cheque is automatically considered approved.
What Phase-2 was intended to do
Phase-2 cheque clearing was supposed to be effective from January 3, 2026. In this phase, banks would have a maximum of three hours to approve or reject the cheque. If there is no response within the specified time, the cheque would be automatically cleared. This would have increased the pressure on banks to complete the work quickly and customers would get their money faster.
The postponement of Phase-2 will further delay the implementation of the new system. For now, cheque clearing will continue as per the rules of Phase-1, where there is no strict time limit of three hours. RBI has said that the date of implementation of Phase-2 will be announced separately later.