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ST Secure MICR Printer User’s Guide 6 2006, Source Technologies
March 2006 All Rights Reserved
2. MICR Overview
MICR stands for Magnetic Ink Character Recognition. All MICR documents have a MICR
line with numbers and symbols printed in a MICR font with magnetically chargeable toner.
Each character of the MICR font has a unique waveform when sensed magnetically.
Financial institutions and the Federal Reserve use the MICR line to identify and sort
checks. The high-speed automated processing of checks and other financial documents
depends on the accuracy and the integrity of the data printed in the MICR line. Your new
Source Technologies Secure MICR Printer is specifically designed to produce high quality
MICR documents.
The Check Processing System
As a MICR document travels through the check clearing system it is processed an
average of almost seven times by high speed reader/sorter machines. Some checks are
read up to 30 times or more by these machines. Reader/sorter machines charge the toner
in the MICR line and then read the line with a magnetically sensitive reader.
The MICR line contains numbers and symbols to indicate the check serial number, the
routing number of the drawee institution and the makers’ account number. The institution
of first deposit encodes the check amount in the MICR line to be read by the reader/sorter
equipment. Checks travel through reader/sorters at up to 20 miles-per-hour (2,400
documents per minute) with each MICR line read in three hundredths of a second.
MICR Printing Today
Congress established the Federal Reserve System (FRS) in 1913. Today most
commercial banks in the United States belong to the FRS. Many other depository
institutions provide banking and checking account services to the public. These other
institutions, such as some credit unions, savings and loan associations and non-member
banks, are not formally part of the FRS. However, they have access to the payment
services it provides and are subject to many of the FRS regulations.
In 1958, because of the explosive growth of check usage, the American Bankers
Association selected the E-13B MICR font and the MICR system as the technology for
high-speed check processing. Today, check standards are determined by the American
National Standards Institute (ANSI) Accredited Standards Committee (ASC) X9B of which
Source Technologies is a voting member. The latest versions of the standards and
technical guidelines are available from:
Hardcopy:
Softcopy:
Global Engineering Documents X9 Electronic Bookstore
Phone 800-854-7179 or 303-397-7956 www.X9.org - click ESS
Fax 303-397-2740 www.ansi.org - click ESS
global@ihs.com
or
http://global.ihs.com
http://webstore.ansi.org