The Canadian Payment Association (CPA), the national body that sets the rules and standards for all Canadian financial institutions, has recently published new specifications for Canadian cheques.  The aim is to make the cheque clearing process more efficient by capturing digital images of the cheques so they can be cleared electronically.

All Canadian cheques will require some changes to align with the new specifications.

Here are the key changes required, to meet the new specifications:

-Numeric date field in one of the  specified formats (MMDDYYYY), (DDMMYYYY) or (YYYYMMDD) with the field indicators printed below the date field to indicate which format is being used. Guidance boxes are not required on computer generated cheques.

-Mandatory serial number (cheque number) in the MICR line encoded at the bottom left hand side of the cheque.

-Increase in the minimum length of a cheque from 6 inches to 6 ½ inches.

-Disallowance of elements that may hinder capture of images or dates from the cheques including inverse printing, italics and slanted fonts.

-New printing requirements on the reverse of the cheque so that image capture can be verified.

-Security features must not interfere with areas of interest.

Pantographs must not be visible on images captured from original cheques.

-Some revisions to technical specifications (eg. Print contrast signal) to ensure high-quality images can be captured.

An overview of the cheque specification changes and the complete new version of CPA Standard 006 are available at www.cdnpay.ca

Our cheques are 100% compliant. 

Your software must be updated to print required fields