They also prefer cheques as they can make late payments through post-dated cheques and other deferred instruments. A payment through a cheque is not final and the availability of funds to the payee takes days. Cheques carry considerable credit risk and the payment can be assured only with a cheque guarantee scheme. Although cheque returns is considered a criminal offence, banks in many countries are reluctant to take appropriate steps to deal with cheque returns, due to fear of recovery of loans and advances from customers. 3.3 Automation of cheque clearing: The cheque clearing process and its modernization have been taking place in many countries. Asia, Singapore, India and Sri Lanka have changed their existing laws and introduced cheque imaging and truncation systems, which have changed the whole process of cheque clearing and reduced processing time and transportation costs. The Sri Lankan experience shows that banks modernized their backoffice systems to accept electronically presented cheque information and link branches to the central cheque clearing center at LankaClear to provide end-to-end cheque processing, by crediting the proceeds to customers’ accounts on t+1 or t+2. This has had a significant impact in the rural and outstation areas in Sri Lanka, where businesses waited for 7 days or more to get cheques cleared. The system has also helped to reduce geographical barriers between regions and districts. Small businesses have begun to roll over finances better and faster. However, although it is advantageous to customers, the inefficiencies inbuilt in paperbased instruments continue to remain.

Similarly, the domestic postal systems can be connected to the global postal network and the Giro payment mechanism used for cross-border remittance transfers. 4. Framework for retail payment development  4.1 How do we seize the existing or emerging opportunities or create new ones? I hope many suggestions and initiatives may come up during the rest of the day. Let me mention a few of the major steps. The framework suggested here is by no means a well-designed blueprint for retail payment development in the region. It is only an effort made to put together a few thoughts. The key elements are not in any particular order either, but for convenience, I have categorised the key elements into policy and operational aspects. 4.2 In order to enable retail payments to play a critical role in financial inclusion, it is necessary to develop a comprehensive, medium-term framework that facilitates the reform process. Once a framework is prepared, all stakeholders need to operate within the framework designed to achieve common goals. Although the culture and patterns vary from country to country, it is clear that retail payment system reforms require the involvement of both the public and the private sector. In the public sector, the central bank’s or monetary authority’s involvement is essential, because they are responsible for monetary policy and for the preservation of public confidence in money. The private sector is equally important, as it has the most relevant information on the payment preferences of the people and is directly involved in providing payments services.