Euro Cheques and Euro Cheque Clearing

Euro-denominated cheques are issued by UK banks and can be used to pay for certain goods and services in the UK. The British euro cheque clearing system was established in 1999 to coincide with the launch of the euro.

Banks which offer customers euro-denominated cheque services generally do so as part of a UK/euro bank account. These cheques can only be used in the UK and when they are paid into euro bank accounts in Great Britain they are processed through the euro cheque clearing, which is managed by the C&CCC.

Euro cheques are used mostly by businesses and the volumes seen are very small. Annual clearing volumes for euro cheques peaked in 2003 at 729,000 and, since then, volumes have declined every year. They now total less than half a million each year.

The euro cheque clearing process

The beneficiary pays the cheque into their bank account at their own bank which then passes it through the euro cheque clearing system to the drawer’s bank who, in turn, debits the funds from the drawer’s account. The 2-4-6 clearing timescales do not apply to euro cheques.

All euro cheques used in the British euro clearing must comply with the design, layout and print requirements of C&CCC standard 3 and must be printed by a CPAS accredited cheque printer. 

Euro cheques are cleared in much the same way as sterling cheques, over a three-day period and they use the same processing equipment and the same exchange centres. However, as with bank giro credits, there is less automation – paper is exchanged, but digital files are not - and the volumes are very small, only totalling a few thousand per day. The settlement service provider for the euro clearings is a European central bank.