Cheques

When you pay a cheque into your account, it first appears in your ‘account balance’ and starts to earn interest immediately. But it takes more time before you can withdraw the money from a cheque. When the cheque is available for withdrawal it appears in the ‘available balance’ for your account.

The ‘Cheque Central Clearing Cycle’ normally takes two business banking days*. However, because we’re not a clearing bank, after you've paid in a cheque we need three business banking days before the funds are available for withdrawal.

We normally add the amount immediately to your account balance and you’ll start earning interest on the money straight away.

 (Not all banks and building societies do this).

But you may still be able to pay in a Coventry Building Society cheque after six months if you take it into a branch or send it to us at:

FREEPOST CBS CUSTOMER SERVICE

It's important that you write the address exactly like this, in capital letters, all on one line. You don't need a stamp. Royal Mail delivers Freepost as Second Class mail. 

We can't accept out of date cheques from other organisations, so you'll need to get a replacement from the person or organisation who gave you the cheque.

When you pay a cheque into your account, we credit your account and then request the money from the bank or building society which issued the cheque. If a cheque is returned unpaid, you will no longer receive a copy of the cheque. Instead  we advise that the cheque has been returned and to refer to the person who issued the cheque.

We don't issue cheque books. However, you can request a cheque from most of our accounts (please see the Specific Terms of your account) at a branch, by phone or by post. We deduct the amount of the cheque from your account balance on the day we process your instructions.

Cheques requested by phone or by post will normally be posted on the same day as we process your instruction. If we receive your instruction on a non-business banking day, the cheque will normally be posted on the next business banking day. As a security precaution, we'll only post cheques to the address we hold for you on our records. 

If we issue a cheque from your account and it’s then lost or stolen, let us know at any branch or call us and we’ll put a stop on it. We’ll ask you to confirm this in writing.

When we have written confirmation, we’ll re-issue the cheque to the original payee. You can’t stop a cheque if you decide that you don’t want an item or service that you’ve paid for.