Sunday, January 17, 2010

What is MICR Code

This is the first post in the series of Jargons of Online Banking.

MICR stands for Magnetic Ink Character Recognition. It's a technology to process cheques. In cheques the bottom area is called MICR band and has MICR code next to cheque number.

1) Cheque Number - It will be of first 6 digits in MICR band.
2) MICR Code - It's a 9 digit code. It constitutes a code to represent city, band and branch (3 digits each). This nine digit code is unique for any bank-branch combination.



Click on abpve photograph to see it enlarged.

Please note that MICR code cannot start with 0. If your cheque shows MICR starting with 0, it implies that it is wrong, probably because your cheque is At Par cheque.

MICR Code of all the Indian banks can be found at RBI's site here.

10 comments:

  1. Thank you so much for providing the above details.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi,
    Your blog is very helpful. I was wonwdering if you know the difference between SI, ECS and Direct Debit.All are payment mode schemes. Direct Debit helps in non ECS locations. SI is available only for payments made to same bank.
    This is what I know as the difference. What I am not sure about is why do we need to specify MICR code only for ECS mandate. We are anyways giving a cancelled cheque which has the MICR code on it for both Direct Debit and ECS. Then, why is it necessary only for ECS to provide the MICR code explictly. Thanks in advance.

    Regards,
    Neha

    ReplyDelete
  3. @Neha, I am not sure of SI and Direct Debit yet. Allow me some time to find this out and i'll let you know.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Nice info on MICR code. Thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  5. go into

    http://www.bankifsc.com

    for all bank ifsc, micr codes...

    ReplyDelete
  6. go into

    http://www.bankifsc.com

    for all bank ifsc, micr codes...

    ReplyDelete
  7. thank you for this information.
    brijesh chandra

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thanking you for this information,I understood the differences of these banking terms.

    Er. Sudhakar
    Itanagar

    ReplyDelete
  9. Just another article!

    ReplyDelete