A cheque guarantee card was an abbreviated portable letter of credit granted by a bank to a qualified depositor in the form of a plastic card that was used in conjunction with a cheque.
The scheme provided retailers accepting cheques with greater security. The retailer would write the card number on the back of the cheque, which was signed in the retailer's presence, and the retailer verified the signature on the cheque against the signature on the card.
The cheque could not be stopped and payment could not be refused by the bank. Each bank would set a limit on the maximum amount of an individual cheque that could be guaranteed. The guarantee only applied to cheques drawn on an account provided by the bank that issued the card, and could result in an overdraft with penalty interest on the cardholder.
After the introduction of debit cards there was a rapid decline in the use of cheques and of cheque guarantee cards, and these facilities were generally phased out during the 2000s in the countries that operated them. The Irish cheque guarantee scheme officially ended on 31 December 2011, ending the last such scheme in existence.
© MMXXIII Rich X Search. We shall prevail. All rights reserved. Rich X Search