The US Federal Reserve Board says it will increase the processing fees for paper cheques by 41% next year as it looks to encourage migration to electronic collection.
In contrast, the Fed says fees for the Reserve Banks' electronic payment services will increase by just two per cent.
The Fed says the number of cheques deposited electronically has grown rapidly in 2008. In August, the proportion deposited with the Reserve Banks for collection was around 83% and by the end of the year this is expected to surpass 90%.
The number of cheques presented electronically using Check 21 products has also grown steadily this year. In August, 57% of the Reserve Banks' volume was presented using Check 21 products and this is expected to reach nearly 70% by the end of the year.
The move to cheaper electronic processing is expected to cost the central bank heavily next year, with effective fees paid to collect cheques using the Reserve Banks' Check 21 services predicted to decline 10%.
This will contribute to falling overall revenues, which are expected to drop to $692.4 million in 2009, from $853 in 2008 and $1.01 billion in 2007.
With expected costs of $707.9 million for the year, the Fed says it should make a loss of $15.6 million, and recover just 93.7% of all its priced services costs, compared to 98.1% in 2008 and 101.9% in 2007.