A dishonoured cheque is a cheque that the bank on which it is drawn declines to pay (“honour”). There are a number of reasons why a bank might refuse to honour a cheque, with non-sufficient funds (NSF) being the most common, indicating that there are insufficient cleared funds in the account on which the cheque was drawn. An NSF check may be referred to as a bad check, dishonored check, bounced check, cold check, rubber check, returned item, or hot check. Lost or bounced checks result in late payments and affect the relationship with customers. In England and Wales and Australia, such cheques are typically returned endorsed "Refer to drawer", an instruction to contact the person issuing the cheque for an explanation as to why it was not paid. If there are funds in an account, but insufficient cleared funds, the cheque is normally endorsed “Present again”, by which time the funds should have cleared.
A transaction account, also called a checking account, chequing account, current account, demand deposit account, or share account at credit unions, is a deposit account or bank account held at a bank or other financial institution. It is available to the account owner "on demand" and is available for frequent and immediate access by the account owner or to others as the account owner may direct. Access may be in a variety of ways, such as cash withdrawals, use of debit cards, cheques and electronic transfer. In economic terms, the funds held in a transaction account are regarded as liquid funds. In accounting terms, they are considered as cash.
Cheque clearing or bank clearance is the process of moving cash from the bank on which a cheque is drawn to the bank in which it was deposited, usually accompanied by the movement of the cheque to the paying bank, either in the traditional physical paper form or digitally under a cheque truncation system. This process is called the clearing cycle and normally results in a credit to the account at the bank of deposit, and an equivalent debit to the account at the bank on which it was drawn, with a corresponding adjustment of accounts of the banks themselves. If there are not enough funds in the account when the cheque arrived at the issuing bank, the cheque would be returned as a dishonoured cheque marked as non-sufficient funds.
Bank fraud is the use of potentially illegal means to obtain money, assets, or other property owned or held by a financial institution, or to obtain money from depositors by fraudulently posing as a bank or other financial institution. In many instances, bank fraud is a criminal offence.
A giro transfer, often shortened to giro, is a payment transfer between current bank accounts and initiated by the payer, not the payee. The debit card has a similar model. Giros are primarily used in Europe; although electronic payment systems exist in the United States, it is not possible to perform third-party transfers with them. In the European Union, the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) allows electronic giro or debit card payments in euros to be executed to any euro bank account in the area.
Cheque fraud or check fraud refers to a category of criminal acts that involve making the unlawful use of cheques in order to illegally acquire or borrow funds that do not exist within the account balance or account-holder's legal ownership. Most methods involve taking advantage of the float to draw out these funds. Specific kinds of cheque fraud include cheque kiting, where funds are deposited before the end of the float period to cover the fraud, and paper hanging, where the float offers the opportunity to write fraudulent cheques but the account is never replenished.
A traveller's cheque is a medium of exchange that can be used in place of hard currency. They can be denominated in one of a number of major world currencies and are preprinted, fixed-amount cheques designed to allow the person signing it to make an unconditional payment to someone else as a result of having paid the issuer for that privilege.
A negotiable instrument is a document guaranteeing the payment of a specific amount of money, either on demand, or at a set time, whose payer is usually named on the document. More specifically, it is a document contemplated by or consisting of a contract, which promises the payment of money without condition, which may be paid either on demand or at a future date. The term has different meanings, depending on its use in the application of different laws and depending on countries and contexts. The word "negotiable" refers to transferability, and "instrument" refers to a document giving legal effect by the virtue of the law.
A cheque is a document that orders a bank, building society to pay a specific amount of money from a person's account to the person in whose name the cheque has been issued. The person writing the cheque, known as the drawer, has a transaction banking account where the money is held. The drawer writes various details including the monetary amount, date, and a payee on the cheque, and signs it, ordering their bank, known as the drawee, to pay the amount of money stated to the payee.
A cashier's check is a check guaranteed by a bank, drawn on the bank's own funds and signed by a bank employee. Cashier's checks are treated as guaranteed funds because the bank, rather than the purchaser, is both the drawee and drawer and is responsible for paying the amount. They are commonly required for real estate and brokerage transactions.
In economics, float is duplicate money present in the banking system during the time between a deposit being made in the recipient's account and the money being deducted from the sender's account. It can be used as investable asset, but makes up the smallest part of the money supply. Float affects the amount of currency available to trade and countries can manipulate the worth of their currency by restricting or expanding the amount of float available to trade.
Cash management refers to a broad area of finance involving the collection, handling, and usage of cash. It involves assessing market liquidity, cash flow, and investments.
The Expedited Funds Availability Act was enacted in 1987 by the United States Congress for the purpose of standardizing hold periods on deposits made to commercial banks and to regulate institutions' use of deposit holds. It is also referred to as Regulation CC or Reg CC, after the Federal Reserve regulation that implements the act. The law is codified in Title 12, Chapter 41 of the US Code and Title 12, Part 229 of the Code of Federal Regulations.
Certified funds are a form of payment that is guaranteed to clear or settle by a bank or other financial institution certifying the funds. The term is most commonly used in North America in the context of real estate transactions.
In banking, a post-dated cheque is a cheque written by the drawer (payer) for a date in the future.
A demand draft (DD) is a negotiable instrument similar to a bill of exchange. A bank issues a demand draft to a client (drawer), directing another bank (drawee) or one of its own branches to pay a certain sum to the specified party (payee).
Check kiting or cheque kiting is a form of check fraud, involving taking advantage of the float to make use of non-existent funds in a checking or other bank account. In this way, instead of being used as a negotiable instrument, checks are misused as a form of unauthorized credit.
A banker's acceptance is a document issued by a bank institution that represents a bank's commitment to make a requested future payment. The request will typically specify the payee, the amount, and the date on which it is eligible for payment. After acceptance, the request becomes an unconditional liability of the bank. Banker's acceptances are distinguished from ordinary time drafts in that ownership is transferable prior to maturity, allowing them to be traded in the secondary market.
Canada Trustco Mortgage Co v Canada, is a significant case of the Supreme Court of Canada on the intersection of the Income Tax Act and the Bills of Exchange Act and the ability to seize funds that have been deposited by a debtor into an account held at a financial institution in Canada.
BMP Global Distribution Inc v Bank of Nova Scotia, [2009] 1 S.C.R. 504, 2009 SCC 15, is a significant case of the Supreme Court of Canada on the law of restitution and tracing, in this case dealing with a bank's right to recover funds paid by mistake on the deposit of a fraudulent cheque.
