A WORCESTERSHIRE company is playing a major role in speeding up the depositing of bank cheques.

Rimilia, which is based on Bromsgrove Enterprise Park, has developed a software solution called Alloc8 to automate cash receipts with little or no manual intervention. The Payments Council and the banking industry recently announced their intentions to allow remote cheque image depositing for customers. This legislation will allow for businesses that still receive cheques and have to present them physically at their local bank or via their clearing centre, to be able to load a scanned cheque image directly to the bank, which will accept the image as legal tender. This will mean that the payment can be processed and cleared within the day rather than the current three to five day waiting time. This will allow for a much more efficient payment process and allow for improved cash flow as well as the ability for a customer to retain a copy of the cheque for auditing purposes.

Steve Richardson, commercial director for Rimilia, said: "We fully embrace this new directive and have been supporting this approach with our American clients for some time. Our intelligent cash allocation solution is already capable of delivering this process as soon as the banks provide customers with the required file format. Our award winning software solution Alloc8 will not only provide this function, but will also automatically match incoming cheque payments to invoices within minutes in addition to its ability to auto match electronic payments. Customers will be able to use Alloc8 to save at least 70 per of the costs and time required for traditional manual payment processes and will be ready to provide this service as soon as the banks are ready. "