If a paying bank makes the decision on whether to pay or bounce a cheque on the third working day after a cheque has been deposited, why isn't the customer proposition 2-4-6 or 2-3-3?
The cheque clearing is, essentially, a paper based operation and the volumes of cheques handled in the clearing each day can still reach 8 million items. The process involves collection of the paper itself from the bank where the cheques were paid in, creation of electronic data files, sorting and physical transfer by road or air to the bank on which they are drawn (i.e. the paying bank). There are strict timescales that the banks must keep to but it is inevitable that in processing this many cheques each day some timescales slip beyond their control. The banks wanted to be sure that they committed to a timescale that could be kept so that is why they agreed to implement 2-4-6 and 2-6-6.