There`s `lack of awareness` of cheque fraud, warns Tally

Venture Computer, the sole distributor in South Africa for Tally Printer Corp., Europe`s No 1 line printer company and a leading designer and manufacturer of high performance printers for key industries, such as banking, telecommunications and government, today warned of an increasing lack of awareness of cheque fraud in the private and public sectors. The announcement comes at a time when cheque fraud is projected by analysts to be growing by as much as 25% annually in the years ahead.

"With the advent and hype of the Internet, much has been made of online fraud, and this has largely overshadowed attention to everyday cheque fraud," explained Robin Edwardes, Managing Director at Tally.

"The private and public sectors continue to rely enormously on cheque printing for banking, employee salaries, local government grants and social security payments, to name a few. It is simply astonishing how easily a cheque can be defaced. The scratch of a Stanley knife can often be the integral part of the equation that transforms R10 into R10 000," continued Edwardes.

"There is a general lack of awareness to this problem, yet companies need to be protected from it. In or out of the virtual world, this is a very real issue."

Tally`s production non-impact printer, the T3016, was recently awarded Grade 1 certification under the PIRA/APACS (Association for Payment Clearing Services) Qualification Service, making it, to date, the only inkjet printer in the UK to receive accreditation as an effective measure in the prevention of cheque defacement.

Cheques produced by the T3016 printer were put under rigorous testing; each test specifically designed to deface the appearance of printed cheques. This included applying a range of substances and using specific tools, including acid, brake fluid, Acetone and scalpel.

The T3016 works by embedding ink into paper instead of printing on the surface. This ensures that print cannot be smudged or defaced in any way, which makes it an ideal solution for cheque printing output, as well as environments that demand printing of this kind, such as labelling applications. Equipped with the accreditation, the T3016 sets a new industry standard for secure computer printing.

By contrast, specialised laser printers that can handle cheque printing on continuous stationery incorporate specialised consumables and work out to approximately six times the running costs of Tally`s T3016. In addition, laser printers often have a limited lifetime of between 100 000 and 150 000 pages. The T3016 is APACS accredited under its standard consumables, requires no special add-ons and produces in excess of 60 000 pages per month with virtually unlimited life.

Head of Printing Technical Services at PIRA, Michael Chamberlain, said, "It is encouraging that the recent extension of the Qualification Scheme to include inkjet printers is now being recognised by equipment manufacturers. We congratulate Tally on being the first UK-based inkjet printer provider to be awarded a Grade 1 certificate. Tally`s T3016 printer should go a long way towards creating peace of mind for organisations dependent on cheque printing."