The Cheque & Credit Clearing Company

The Cheque & Credit Clearing Company is a membership-based industry body with twelve settlement members. In addition to managing the cheque clearing system in Great Britain, which also processes bankers' drafts, building society cheques, postal orders, warrants and government payable orders, its wide remit includes the management of the systems for clearing paper bank giro credits and euro-denominated cheques.

Members of the Cheque & Credit Clearing Company are individually responsible for processing cheques drawn by or credited to the accounts of their customers. In addition, several hundred other institutions provide cheque facilities for their customers and obtain indirect access to the cheque clearing mechanisms by means of commercially negotiated agency arrangements with one of the full members.

Cheque & Credit Clearing Company Members

• Alliance and Leicester
• Bank of England
• Bank of Scotland (HBOS)
• Barclays Bank
• Clydesdale
• The Co-operative Bank
• HSBC
• Lloyds TSB
• Nationwide
• NatWest
• Royal Bank of Scotland
• Santander

6.5 million cheques and credits pass through the GB interbank clearing each working day. Cheque volumes reached a peak in 1990 but usage has fallen since then, mainly owing to increased use of plastic cards and direct debits by personal customers. However, cheques remain popular in the business sector for paying suppliers.

In 2009 the cheque celebrated its 350th anniversary. In 2008, more than 1.4 billion cheques were processed with a total value of £1.43 trillion.

Please visit www.chequeandcredit.co.uk for more information.