Cheque Truncation System – Infinet Membership

Cheque Truncation System – Infinet Membership.

Why is INFINET membership required for Banks to be part of CTS Grid?

• One of the important security measures in CTS is the Digital Signature of the Presenting Bank.  
• IDRBT is the certifying authority for banks & financial institutions in India, hence the Banks have to be a member of INFINET. 
• The security, integrity, non-repudiation and authenticity of the data and image transmitted from the paying bank to payee bank will be ensured using the Public Key Infrastructure (PKI).
• The CTS is compliant to the requirement of the IT Act, 2000. It has
• been made mandatory for the presenting bank to sign the image & data from the point of  origin itself. The image and data are secured using the PKI through out the entire cycle covering capture system, the presenting bank, the clearing house and the drawee bank.

The PKI standards used are in accordance with the appropriate Indian acts and practices of IDRBT which is the certifying authority for banks & financial institutions in India.

The standards defined for the PKI are as followed:

1. hash algorithm SHA-1
2. padding algorithm pkcs#1
3. asymmetric encryption with 1024 bit key length
4. Triple DES (3DES, TDES) symmetric encryption with 168 bit key length Certificates in x.509v3 format

What are the image specifications in the CTS?

• Imaging of cheques can be based on various technology options. The cheque images
• can be black and white, Grey Scale or coloured. Black and White images do not reveal all the subtle features that are there in the cheques. Coloured Images increase storage and network bandwidth requirements.
• So it was decided that the electronic images of  truncated cheques will be in gray scale technology.
• There will be three images of the cheques i.e. front grey, front black & white and back black & white which will be made available to member banks.
•  
• The image specifications are:

Image Type Minimum DPI Format Compression

Front GrayScale 100 DPI JFIF JPEG

Front Black & White 200 DPI TIFF CCITT G4

Reverse Black & White 200 DPI TIFF CCITT G4

The image quality of the Grey Scale image shall be 8 bits/pixel (256 levels).

What is a gray-scale image?

• Scanners also function like photo-copiers by reflecting the light passed through narrow passage on to the document.
• Tiny sensors measure the reflection from each point along the strip of light. Reflectance measurements of each dot is called pixel.
• Images are classified as black and white, gray-scale or colors based on the pixels are converted into digital values. For getting a gray scale image the pixels are mapped onto a range of gray shades between black and white. The entire image of the original document gets mapped as some shade of gray, lighter or darker, depending on the color of the source.
In the case of black and white images, such mapping is made only to two colours based on the range of values of contrasts. A black and white image is also called a binary image.

How the quality of the images will be ensured?

• As the payments will be made on the basis of the images, it is essential to ensure the quality of the images. For that purpose the solution proposes Image Quality Audit (IQA) at different level.
• RBI specifies the image standards to the member banks.
• The presenting bank is required to perform the quality audit during the capture itself. Further quality audit will be done at the gateway before onward transmission to clearing house.
• Further the drawee bank can ask for the physical instrument if it is not satisfied that the image quality is not good enough for payment processing.

What is is INFINET

The INdian  FInancial NETwork [INFINET] is the communication backbone for the Indian Banking and Financial Sector. All Banks, Public Sector, Private Sector, Cooperative, etc., and the premier Financial Institutions in the country are eligible to become members of the INFINET. 

The INFINET is a Closed User Group [CUG] Network for the exclusive use of member banks and financial institutions.

INFINET is maintained by IDBRT-Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology.