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Articles October 30, 1990 From the desk of … Roy N. Van Denburgh STOP! LOOK! LISTEN!An Open Letter to anyone thinking of purchasing, or using, a non-impact printer to print checks with E13B Magnetic Ink Characters.To date, the experience in the financial services industry processing checks produced from MICR laser or other non-impact printers has been marginal at best, unless they have been substantially modified to print durable MICR characters. By "substantially modified", I mean that the printer has incorporated some mechanism beyond the simple addition of magnetic toner and MICR font to prevent the MICR characters from deteriorating during the check clearing process. Although under laboratory environments unmodified printers have the capability of producing satisfactory MICR printing, in real life the uncontrolled environment coupled with unskilled operators where these printers are installed are producing an excessive number of rejects or items requiring exception item processing far in excess of conventional letterpress, offset or ribbon printed checks. The reasons for this are many, but foremost is the fact that MICR laser printer toner, in the form of E13B characters, when subjected to the multiple passes required in the check clearing system, is impermanent and will deteriorate. Sometimes smearing, other times being removed as extra bits of ink which contaminate other documents and even the transports of the MICR reading equipment causing severe problems. While some checks are processed a relatively few number of times, the fact is that bankers feel that any MICR printed item should be able to be processed 20 times without rejecting as long as it has been printed to spec. This is why the ANSI accredited committee on Paper Document Payment Processing ASC X9B has insisted on the stress test of survival of 30 passes. The field experience to date indicates that unmodified non-impact MICR printers vary from day to day in their capability to produce satisfactory MICR printing from a permanence standpoint. The ambient environmental conditions where these printers are used, the quality of the paper, particularly the moisture content, all play an important part in the quality of the MICR printing produced. Since no printer manufacturer can control these factors, the result, for the most part, has been deteriorating MICR quality over the continued use of the device in the customers hands. First, from a banker's perspective, the cost of handling rejects that occur as a result of this subsequent pass deterioration is more expensive than if the reject occurred on the first pass (capture) of the MICR data from an item. The industry has an efficient capture pass reject repair system that is largely automated. Subsequent pass rejects such as are seen from unmodified non-impact MICR printers, however, require expensive labor-intensive manual intervention. Second, since the character shapes (dimensions) in a non-impact printing system are created by software and depend on the resolution of the print device, often the character shape, radii, stroke widths, and even proper character spacings do not meet ANSI specifications for MICR printing. Third, the code line; that is, the specific requirements by field of the "check", are established by the paying institution. Many non-impact printed MICR documents do not contain the proper data by MICR field. Banks do not always tell their customers all the data required for successful processing. The use of non-impact MICR printers by people who are not familiar with MICR printing requirements or bank check processing requirements, coupled with the various weaknesses of unmodified non-impact technology in printing quality MICR has been described as a "processing disaster waiting to happen". Don't purchase or use a non-impact printer for MICR printing without first speaking with your bank, a reader/sorter manufacturer, or someone else who has years of proven experience in printing quality MICR. Sincerely, Roy N. Van Denburgh |
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