Personal Cheque Book FAQs

You must a member and over the age of 18 to apply for a cheque account. A cheque account is available by application only. You may do this by telephone or by emailing us at info@geelongbank.com.au

When you deposit a cheque in your Geelong Bank account it will usually take 3 working days to clear, but may take longer in some cases. Please note that you will not be able to withdraw any of the proceeds of a cheque until it is cleared.

If you cross a cheque, it is a direction to us to pay the cheque into an account at a bank or other financial institution. A crossing does not actually prevent the cheque being negotiated or transferred to a third party before presentation to a bank or financial institution for payment. Your pre-printed cheque forms have the words ‘not negotiable’ embedded in them.

When you add the words account payee only between these lines you are saying that only the named person can collect the proceeds of the cheque. These words may give you better protection against theft or fraud. It would be prudent for the collecting financial institution to make inquiries of the customer paying the cheque in, if the customer is not the payee of the cheque.

Your pre-printed cheque forms have the words 'or bearer' after the space where you write the name of the person to whom you are paying the cheque. The cheque is a 'bearer' cheque. If you cross out the words 'or bearer' and do not add the words 'or order', the cheque is still a bearer cheque. You can give yourself more protection against theft or fraud by crossing out the words 'or bearer' and adding the words 'or order'.

You can stop payment on a cheque by:

• Contacting us to provide you with a stop payment authority. You may do this by telephone or by emailing us at info@geelongbank.com.au

You must, of course, do this before we have paid the cheque. A dishonour fee will be charged should the cheque subsequently be presented.

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When filling in a cheque:

• start the name of the person to whom you are paying the cheque as close as possible to the word 'Pay';
• draw a line from the end of the person's name to the beginning of the printed words 'or bearer';
• start the amount in words with a capital letter as close as possible to the words 'The sum of' and do not leave blank spaces large enough for any other words to be inserted; also
• add the word 'only' after the amount in words;
• draw a line from the end of the amount in words to the printed '$';
• start the amount in numbers close after the printed '$' and
• avoid any spaces between the numbers; and
• always add a stop '.' or dash '-' to show where the dollars end and the cents begin and, if there are no cents, always write '.00' or '-00' to prevent insertion of more numbers to the dollar figure.