GB2109745A - Method and apparatus for the production of travellers' cheques - Google Patents

Abstract

A book of travellers' cheques is produced by pre-printing individual cheques with constant information, e.g. value (4), details of issuing financial institution (5), (9) and a background pattern (8), loading the cheques into feed hopper(s), feeding the cheques into a printing station where further branding information including the name of the selling agency (9), (10), (11), is added from one or more printing plates, stacking, collaring and binding to form the cheque book. Magnetic (1) or optical (6) codes can optionally be added at the printing station. <IMAGE>

Description

SPECIFICATION Method and apparatus for the production of travellers' cheques This invention relates to the printing and personalisation of travellers' cheques. Specifically, it applies to a method and apparatus for the "private branding" of travellers' cheques, each of which may, or may not, be further printed with a unique code line.

A method of printing bank cheques has previously been proposed in British Patent 1 214 639. In this specification sheets are bulk printed with constant information, such as a secure background design and some details which are common to all cheques, such as the name of the issuing bank. These sheets are then cut into individual cheque documents, and placed into the hoppers of a cheque personalisation machine as described in the above specification.

Each sheet is then fed individually through a series of personalising print stations. These stations print upon each individual cheque the account name and a magnetic ink recognition character code line comprising of the cheque serial number, the account number and the bank branch sort code (sometimes referred to as the 'transit routing code' in the USA). The code line is verified and finally the bank branch address and once again the sort code, in a normal typeface, is printed by means of a plate printer in a position normally to the top of the cheque. This plate printer is described in detail in British Patent Specifications Nos. 1401624 and 1401625.

However, a brief description of this process will be given here.

Because the bank branch address and sort code number only changes after all the cheques for various account holders at that particular branch have been printed, this information, it has been found, is best printed from a previously prepared plate containing that information. This plate is loaded into a plate holder along with any other branch address plates which may be needed during a given production run. When required this plate is automatically fed into the plate printer unit. By means of marks positioned on the edge of the plate the plate is verified as being the correct one for printing the next batch of cheques. These marks may be in the form of a binary code, for example, but will not be printed on the cheque.

Individual cheques passing under the plate printer are momentarily stopped, while a hammer rising from beneath the track causes an impression to be transferred via a printing ribbon, from the plate onto each individual cheque. After printing, each individual cheque is collated into a cheque book, the covers added, and then stitched and bound into a completed cheque book.

Travellers' cheques generally differ from bank cheques in several ways. They are, unlike bank cheques, generally pre-printed with a set value of the currency of the country in which they will be used. They are also not normally (but could be) personalised with the name and account number of their subsequent bearer. Therefore, any magnetic ink character recognition (MICR) or optical character recognition (OCR) code line is not normally (but could be) required to contain an account. Furthermore, they are now issued by a wide variety of financial institutions other than just banks, such as for example, travel companies, credit card companies, and are sold by many different selling agencies (who may be any retail organisation).

In addition to constant information, each individual travellers' cheque will require the name, address and optionally at least one logo of the issuing financial institution and/or selling agency.

Optionally, a magnetic ink character recognition or optical character recognition code line may also be required.

The known methods of personalising cheques are not suited directly to these requirements for travellers' cheques and it is therefore an object of the invention to provide an improved method of private branding travellers' cheques which is sufficiently flexible to satisfy all the above requirements.

A method in accordance with the invention of preparing private branded travellers' cheques and forming a cheque book including such cheques, comprises loading into one or more feed hoppers a plurality of travellers' cheques, the cheques being pre-printed with constant information such as the value of the cheques, a background pattern, and name, address, sort code and logo of an issuing financial institution; feeding successive preprinted travellers' cheques from the feed hoppers to at least one printing station; printing on successive cheques at the printing station private branding information such as the name, address, sort code and logo of a selling agency; and stacking, collating and binding the branded cheques to form a cheque book. The method may include printing a code line containing sort code, and serial and series number, in machine readable code.

When the cheques are private branded with a logo of the selling agency, the logo may be positioned adjacent to the name and address of the selling agency, or at any preselected place on the cheque. Likewise, the address, when printed, may be positioned anywhere on the cheque.

Information peculiar to the issuing bank may be omitted from the pre-printing stage, and is then printed at a printing station close to the "private branding" printing station; this may include printing a logo for the issuing bank. The printing of information on the pre-printed cheques may be by conventional plate printers, or for example, by a flexographic printing technique.

In order that the invention may be better understood, an embodiment of the invention is described below with reference to the accompanying drawings, wherein: Figures 1 and 2 show travellers' cheques printed with information peculiar to their issuing bank and selling agency, by a method according to the invention; Figure 3 is a schematic diagram of apparatus according to a preferred embodiment for producing private branded travellers' cheques of the type shown in Figures 1 and 2; Figure 4 illustrates a flexographic printing process for private branding pre-printed travellers' cheques, according to a further embodiment; and, Figure 5 shows printing plates and a flexographic plate suitable for private branding cheques in accordance with the embodiments described.

Generally speaking, travellers' cheques produced in accordance with this invention may have a magnetic ink character recognition code line (e.g. 1, Figure 1) which consists of a sort code 2 representing the issuing financial institution and/or the selling agency, and that travellers' cheque serial and series number 3. This code line will normally be found printed along, and near, the base of each individual travellers' cheque, though it may be positioned in other areas according to the preference of the issuing financial institution or specifications of international banking standards such as those issued by ABA. The issuing financial institution's name, address and logo may be grouped together or positioned separately in two or more different areas of the travellers' cheque. Furthermore, a name, address and logo, or logos, of the selling agency (i.e.British Bank in Figure 1) may also be positioned in one or more areas of the travellers' cheque. The sort code 2 may also be repeated 2' in either a gothic character font or an OCR character font, near the OCR or gothic version of the serial and series number 6. Pre-printed on the cheque of Figure 1 are such items as the value of that particular travellers' cheque 4, the name 5, and logo 7 of the issuing financial institution and a secure background design 8. The name 9, address 10, and logo 11, of the selling agency are printed in the "private branding" operation. A gothic or OCR readable sort code 2' may also be printed at this time, or during the pre-printing operation.

Likewise a gothic or OCR readable serial and series number 6 may be printed by a printing station near the plate printing station, or during the pre-printing operation. This number may also be printed in other positions instead of, or as well as the position 6 shown in Figures 1, 2.

that of its name 14. Also, in this example, the travellers' cheque is payable through the issuing bank and not directly through the selling agency, as in the previous example, hence the address 1 5 can be pre-printed.

Travellers' cheques, in a similar way to bank cheques, may be pre-printed in bulk with constant information such as for example, a secure background design, the details relating to the issuing financial institution and the value information, together with information relating to the general design of the travellers' cheque by printing means well known in the art such as, for example, direct plate or intaglio printing. These sheets may then be cut into individual travellers' cheques for the "private branding" and code line printing operations. In some instances however it may also be preferable to pre-print the code line while still at the bulk sheet stage.

The "private branding" information, code line, and serial and series number may be printed on each individual travellers' cheque by the method and apparatus proposed in British Patent Specification 1 214 639 but with such modifications which are the subject of the present invention, and the system and apparatus proposed, in this embodiment for this purpose is illustrated diagrammatically in Figure 3.

The code line may also be printed onto each individual travellers' cheque using, in principle, the apparatus disclosed in British Patent Application 7913792, published as 2018684, or alternatively by the wheel-set type printer printing apparatus disclosed in British Patent 1 401 624, used on the cheque printing system disclosed in British Patent Specification 1 214 639. The gothic or OCR readable serial and series number, in the top right hand corner and/or other positions of the travellers' cheque, may also be printed by similar means.

A customer placing an order for a book, or books, of travellers cheques totalling a specified value, for example 500, will usually require that book to be made up of travellers' cheques representing various values such as 10, 20, 50 and 100 which add up in total to the required amount, for example 500. A book of travellers' cheques for this customer may therefore comprise four E 10 travellers' cheques, three 20 travellers' cheques, two 50 travellers' cheques, and three 100 travellers' cheques. Another customer may require a totally different combination.The nature and organisation of the travellers' cheque production system claimed herein is ideally suited to books of travellers' cheques suitably "private branded" to the selling agency and arranged in such a series of values as the customer requires.

The production of travellers' cheques in accordance with this invention can be carried out as described below. Travellers' cheque stock preprinted with the constant information described above are loaded into feed hoppers 31 of the travellers' cheque production system shown diagrammatically in Figure 3, each of which contains a different denomination of the currency in which'that particular batch of travellers' cheques are to be issued. Customers' orders (Data Entry, Figure 3) may be received on a magnetic tape and this tape may be used to control the production of the books of travellers' cheques.

Information contained on the tape specifies the serial and series number of each travellers' cheque, the sort code, information specifying the mix of denominations required for each customer's travellers' cheque book, and information to ensure that the correct plates relating to the selling agency are used, for the "private branding". Alternatively, this information will need to be entered into the system by some other means, such as, for example, by direct entry through a computer terminal of the computer controlling the travellers' cheque production system or by, for example, punched cards, or paper tape.

Under the control of the computer 30, documents are fed one by one from the hoppers 31 via a doubles detector whose output is fed to the computer, onto the track of the printing machine and sequentially through each printing station. The first printing stations 32, 33 are normally used to print the MICR or OCR code line at a specified fixed position on the travellers' cheque. The correctness of this code line is then verified by an MICR or an OCR reader 34. The next printing station 35 is used to print a gothic serial and series number at the top right of the travellers' cheque. At this point a further check can be made on the serial and series number printed in the code line and in the repeat position by comparing print wheel position check data received from the appropriate print wheels at each printing station.

Further details about this validation process are disclosed in British Patent Application 2 018 684 referred to above.

The travellers' cheque then proceeds to one or more plate printing stations (36, 37) which print the selling agency's name, and optionally address and logo or logos. At these printing stations the image on each plate may be transferred to the travellers' cheque by the impact of a hammer against the underside of the travellers' cheque thereby transferring the image from the plate via a film ribbon coated with a transferable printing ink.

Alternatively the travellers' cheque may be squeezed against the printing plate and a printing ribbon. Because each selling agency may require its name, address and logo to be positioned in different places on the travellers' cheque, it is necessary to provide means to adjust the position at which the plate printer prints this information.

This is accomplished by slidably mounting the plate printer or printers on rails with means by which they can be firmly fixed in position after adjustment across the width and length of the travellers' cheque printing position. Associated with each plate printer 36, 37 is a checker for ensuring that the correct plate has been fed into the plate printer.

Following this operation the travellers' cheque is fed via an optional ink jet printing stage 38 into a perforating station 39 for the addition of the perforation shown as 1 2 in Figure 1, and then fed into a collating station 40 where it is collated together with other travellers' cheque documents, including a purchase agreement form, into a travellers' cheque book and then transferred to a stitching and binding machine 42 or fastened together in some other way. The purchase agreement may not necessarily be stitched and bound into the cheque book, though it will be packed with the cheque book. Finally, the travellers' cheque book may be inserted by a packing machine 43 into an envelope or plastic wallet ready for delivery to the customer.If the computer has in the meantime received any signal indicative of an error e.g. a print failure, then a reject flap 41 is operated in order to reject the collated cheques before they are bound.

The purchase agreement form may comprise a single sheet of the same, or similar size to the travellers' cheque or may be a multi-part set. It is usually required to be printed with a code line, the series and serial numbers of the travellers' cheques in each travellers' cheque book, possibly the "private branding" information and some further contract information which may include such things as the total value of the travellers' cheques in the book, the commission earned by the selling agency for whom the travellers' cheques are "private branded" and any other relevant details. This purchase agreement may, as shown in the embodiment of Figure 3, be printed by a line printer 44 onto web from a web feed 45 or fanfolded stock and subsequently guillotined (46), because generally the purchase agreement does not need to be printed to the same high quality as the travellers' cheques.However, if desired they may be fed through the full printing system as shown in Figure 3 from one of the feed hoppers. As a further alternative they may also be printed by a separate printing machine of the form disclosed above and shown in Figure 3. The functions performed by the printing and other apparatus under control of the computer can be recorded, and printed out by an output printer 47 for analysis, or as a production record.

Although plate printing stations are currently preferred for the printing of selling organisations' names, address and logo, other newly developed printing techniques may also be applicable.

Specifically these include the ink jet printing method, a laser printing method and a method of flexographic printing.

Printing with a laser is normally accomplished by feeding digitised information under the control of a computer to a laser which "writes" that information onto a photo-conductive surface. This surface is then toned in the image areas and this toned image is transferred to the printing substrate and fused.

Flexographic printing is a printing method whereby an image is printed direct from a flexible relief image which acts as the printing plate. The plate is constructed from a plastics material onto which is coated a photopolymer, many of which are known in the art. For example an image exposed onto the photopolymer causes the imaged areas to harden when developed, while the remainder of the photopolymer coating may be washed away leaving a relief image. Because these plates are flexible they may be wrapped around the cylinder of a printing machine. This plate may therefore print while it is rotating and the print substrate need not come to a halt for the printing operation.Because of the consequent potential increase in speed, simplification of the registration procedure and the ease if imaging bank names, addresses and logos onto this type of printing plate material, it is admirably suited to the process of "private branding" travellers' cheques.

Therefore, the plate printing stations referred to above maybe replaced with this printing method in a further embodiment of this invention.

An illustration of this method is shown in Figure 4. A travellers' cheque 1 6 is fed along the track and is detected by a photocell 1 7 which sets a printing cylinder 1 8 holding a flexographic printing plate 19, revolving such that the "private branding" information on the plate is printed in accurate registration on the travellers' cheque, under the action of a pressure roller 20. Inking rollers 21 ink the printing plate, while the plate cylinder is driven by motor 22 under the control of the system computer.

Two rigid plates 28, 29 and a flexographic plate 27 are shown in Figure 5 containing typical information required for the private branding of travellers' cheques. The two rigid plates could be used to "private brand" the travellers' cheque shown in Figure 1. That containing the bank name and logo (23) would be used in the first plate printing station while that containing the address 24 would be used in the second plate printing station, shown in Figure 3. As yet a further option the issuing financial institution's sort code 25 could also be printed during this operation if required. The codes 26 are read by a detector and used to ensure that the correct plate is in use.

The flexographic plate 27 contains the information needed for the "private branding" of the travellers' cheque shown in Figure 2.

The logo or logos of the selling agency may be coloured, and printed in a number of different stages by plates for each colour ink that is required. The logo of the issuing financial institution may also be coloured, requiring printing plates for different colours if it is not pre-printed.

Claims (14)

1. A method of preparing private branded travellers' cheques and forming a cheque book including such cheques, comprising: loading into one or more feed hoppers, a plurality of travellers' cheques, the cheques being pre-printed with constant information such as the value of the cheques, a background pattern, and name, address, sort code and logo of an issuing financial institution; feeding successive pre-printed travellers' cheques from the feed hopper to at least one printing station: printing on successive cheques at the printing station private branding information including the name of a selling agency; and stacking, collating and binding the private branded cheques to form a cheque book.

2. A method in accordance with claim 1, wherein the pre-printed cheques are privately branded with the address of the selling agency on any pre-selected area of the cheque.

3. A method in accordance with claim 1, wherein the pre-printed cheques are private branded with one or morn. logos, of the selling agency on any pre-selected area of the cheque.

4. A method in accordance with any of claims 1, 2 or 3, further including the step of printing a code line on the cheque.

5. A method in accordance with claim 4, wherein the code line contains at least the serial and series numbers for the cheque.

6. Apparatus for preparing private branded travellers' cheques and forming a cheque book including such cheques, the apparatus including at least one feed hopper for loading pre-printed travellers' cheques on which are printed constant information such as the value of the cheques, a background pattern, and the name, address, sort code and logo of an issuing financial institution; at least one printing station for printing additional information on the travellers' cheques; means for feeding successive cheques to the printing station or stations; printing means at at least one printing station for private branding each travellers' cheque by printing the said additional information which includes at least the name of a selling agency; and means for conveying successive cheques from the printing stations and for stacking, collating and binding the private branded cheques to form a cheque book.

7. Apparatus in accordance with claim 6, wherein the printing means also prints the address of the selling agency at a preselected area of the cheque.

8. Apparatus in accordance with claim 6, wherein the printing means prints at least one logo of the selling agency at a preselected area of the cheque.

9. Apparatus in accordance with claim 6, 7, or 8, wherein the printing means also prints a code line on the cheque.

1 0. Apparatus in accordance with claim 9, wherein the said code line contains at least the serial number and series number of the cheque.

11. Apparatus in accordance with claim 6, 7 or 8, wherein the printing means comprises a flexographic printer.

12. Apparatus in accordance with claims 6,7 or 8, wherein the printing means comprises a laser printer.

13. Apparatus in accordance with claims 6, 7 or 8, wherein the printing means comprises at least one ink jet printer.

14. Apparatus in accordance with claim 6, 7 or 8 wherein the printing means includes at least one printing plate, and means for positioning the printing plate at a correct position over successive travellers' cheques.

1 5. A method of preparing private branded travellers' cheques and forming a cheque book including such cheques, substantially as described with reference to the accompanying drawings.