The Reserve Bank on Monday asked banks to implement the image-based Cheque Truncation System (CTS) in all branches by September 30, a move aimed at faster settlement of cheques resulting in better customer service. There are about 18,000 bank branches that are still outside any formal clearing Last month, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had announced pan-India coverage of CTS by bringing all bank branches under the image-based clearing The CTS is in use since 2010 and presently covers around 1,50,000 branches. All the erstwhile 1,219 non-CTS clearing houses (ECCS centres) have been migrated to CTS effective September 2020. It is, however, seen that there are branches of banks that are outside any formal clearing arrangement and their customers face hardships due to longer time taken and cost involved in collection of cheques presented by them, the RBI said. "To leverage the availability of CTS and provide uniform customer experience irrespective of location of her/his bank branc