BCS Information Systems (BCSIS) and Sun Microsystems have provided what they claim is the world's first nationwide cheque truncation system (CTS) in Singapore.
CTS began as a joint initiative of the Singapore Clearing House Association (SCHA) and the Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS). Running on a backbone of Sun servers, the system enables the physical cheque to remain with the bank of first deposit while the outward, inward, outward return and inward return legs of the clearing cycle are automated and interfaced with the banks' host systems.
Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR) data and the cheque images are transmitted to SCHA via a secure communication network for clearing and settlement. Data and images are stored in a national archive for future retrieval by member banks.
CTS also deploys public key infrastructure (PKI) technology and Certificate Authority (CA) infratructure to achieve secure data exchange and non-repudiation of information.