Here is the thing that makes printing Indian cheques easier than printing Gulf ones: they are all the same. Under the Reserve Bank of India's Cheque Truncation System (CTS-2010) standard, Indian banks issue cheques to a common specification — same size, same field positions, same date boxes.
So there is no such thing as an "HDFC cheque format" that differs from an "ICICI cheque format". There is one Indian cheque format, and 37 banks in ChequeMaster that use it.
The standard
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Size | 202 x 93 mm |
| Date | Boxed digits — DD MM YYYY, one character per box |
| Amount in words | Two lines |
| Payee | One line |
| A/C payee crossing | Enabled |
| Bearer field | Enabled |
| Date format | DD/MM/YYYY |
What CTS-2010 actually changed
Cheque truncation means banks clear cheques from a scanned image rather than physically moving the paper between branches. For that to work reliably, the image has to be predictable — which is why the standard fixes not just the size but the field positions, the paper quality, the void pantograph in the background, and the placement of the MICR band along the bottom.
Two practical consequences for anyone printing cheques:
- Your printing has to stay inside the fields. A cheque scanned for clearing is read by machine first. Text drifting across a box division causes queries that a human-read cheque would have absorbed.
- Never print over the MICR band. The strip of stylised digits along the bottom edge is machine-read. Keep everything clear of it.
Boxed dates need the left margin right
The date is the field most sensitive to alignment on an Indian cheque, because each character has its own box. A single date field tolerates a millimetre of drift; eight small boxes do not.
When you test-print, look at the date row first. If digits sit on the divisions rather than inside the boxes, adjust the left margin in Settings in small steps. Get the date centred and the rest of the cheque is usually already correct. More detail in fixing cheque printing alignment.
Amount in words: use lakh, not million
Set the amount-in-words unit to lakh in Settings so ₹12,50,000 prints as Twelve Lakh Fifty Thousand Rupees rather than One Million Two Hundred Fifty Thousand. Both are arithmetically right; only one is what an Indian payee and bank expect to read.
Keep decimal digits at 2 for the rupee. (Three decimals are for the Kuwaiti and Bahraini dinars and the Omani rial.)
The 37 Indian banks included
All pre-loaded, all at 202 x 93 mm — public sector, private, foreign and co-operative:
- Large private: HDFC Bank (and HDFC Preferred), ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, IndusInd Bank, Yes Bank, IDFC First Bank, DCB Bank
- Public sector: State Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, Bank of Baroda, Central Bank of India, Indian Overseas Bank, UCO Bank, IDBI Bank, Union Bank of India (and Union Gold), Bank of Maharashtra, Punjab & Sind Bank
- Merged and legacy names still in circulation: Allahabad Bank, Andhra Bank, Corporation Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce, Syndicate Bank, State Bank of Bikaner & Jaipur
- Regional and small finance: Karnataka Bank, AU Small Finance Bank, Equitas Small Finance Bank
- Co-operative: Saraswat Bank, Cosmos Bank, Surat People's Co-operative Bank, Kalupur Commercial Co-operative Bank, Nutan Nagarik Sahakari Bank, Ahmedabad District Co-operative Bank
- Foreign: Citibank India, Standard Chartered Priority
Co-operative bank coverage is worth calling out — these are the cheques most often missing from cheque printing software, and they are the ones a great many small businesses in Gujarat and Maharashtra actually use.
If your bank is not listed
Because the format is standardised, any existing Indian layout is a very close starting point. Create your own from a scan of your cheque and you will find the field positions barely need moving — see building a cheque layout from a scan.
Where bank-specific variants do exist
A few banks issue visibly different stationery for premium account tiers, and those get their own layouts: HDFC and HDFC Preferred, Union Bank and Union Bank Gold, Standard Chartered Priority. Same 202 x 93 paper, different printed design. If your cheque looks unlike the standard one for your bank, check whether a tier-specific layout exists before editing anything.
