Incidences have been brought to the notice of State Bank of Pakistan that some branch managers have opened accounts without proper identification of the new account holder. Subsequently, fake cheques were deposited in these accounts, which were processed and cleared through the clearing system in the normal course. In order to avoid the use of banking channel by the fraudsters, and to make the payment system more secure, the banks are advised to (i) take due care in opening of accounts (ii) make appropriate arrangements and exercise extra vigilance at the time of clearing the financial instruments (iii) take extra caution on payment of cash against cheques over the counters. The banks are further advised to cascade this alert down to all relevant members of their staff to avoid occurrence of such incidences in the future.

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