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As Nicholas says, this appears to be a problem in banking practice
rather than law.<br>
<br>
In the late 1990s most UK banks embarked on projects to examine the
details and "best practice" of scanning print documents, including
cheques, into electronic form. The Civil Evidence Act, 1995, meant
that it was no longer essential for banks and others to maintain
original hard copies - scanning has the virtues of saving space, being
much easier to index and hence locate stuff when required, and also the
e-versions can be backed up.<br>
<br>
Colleagues of mine at the LSE helped formulate what became BSI
PD0008/0009, which are the applicable standards. (I played a rather
minor part). The international, as opped to the British, version is
now ISO15489. <br>
<br>
Later one of the clearing banks asked us to do some consultancy
specific to their implementation of it.<br>
<br>
Your bank is thus likely to have had many examples from which to obtain
the "sample" signature they decided to compare with the one you offered.
<br>
<br>
Peter Sommer<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
On 22/08/2010 08:33, Mary Hawking wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:35CF6DF4974B479A941D40F7FA873AC5@MaryPC"
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<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="2" face="Arial"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">Sorry to ask this here,
but can anyone tell me how banks are
supposed to acquire specimen signatures for cheques or point me to any
relevant
URLs?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="2" face="Arial"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">My bank refused to honour
a cheque on the grounds that it
did not match the mandated signature.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="2" face="Arial"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">With some difficulty, I
got a sight of the said signature,
obtained in 2002 abd scanned in in 2004. The bank is unable to tell me
where
the signature came from: it could have been from something I signed or
taken
from a cheque.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="2" face="Arial"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">Surely there must be some
regulations or at the least
internal bank regulations on this? Seeing I’ve been with the same bank
since 1961 and the same branch since 1979, it seems a bit odd to only
get a
signature in 2002!<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="2" face="Arial"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;">(and it has become more
flamboyant compared to the signature
they hold – so why have other, similarly large, cheques been honoured
without problems?)<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="2" face="Arial"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><em><i><font size="5" face="French Script MT"><span
style="font-size: 18pt; font-family: "French Script MT";">Mary Hawking</span></font></i></em><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><o:p></o:p></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
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<br>
<br>
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