MICR Line Specifications
Magnetic Ink Character Recognition, or MICR, is a character recognition technology used by the banking industry to assist in the processing of checks. The MICR technology allows both computers and people to easily read information such as account numbers. These characters can be printed in a variety of special typefaces with magnetic ink or toner that is decoded by magnetic machine readers.
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Printing Standards
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The American National Standards Institute has a special committee that develops all MICR printing standards. The standards include mandates for precision fonts, toner signal strength, registration, toner adhesion, paper grain and moisture content. The MICR standards developed by ANSI have been published in two different standards. ABA 092200 covers printer specifications while ABA 092700 covers printing placement and location. A group similar to ANSI exists in Canada which issues CPA 006, the equivalent standards for Canada.
Typeface and Characters
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MICR typeface has only 14 characters in it. These characters include the numbers 0 through 9 and four special symbols: transit, amount, on-us and dash. Due to the limited amount of characters authorized under MICR standards, an entire check cannot be printed utilizing this method. MICR characters are a fixed width of 1/8 of an inch. The characters within the fixed width space can be printed in five different widths but must be positioned correctly for accurate reading.
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Toner
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The toner used to print MICR lines is formulated with a special grade of magnetic iron oxide which transmits signals to the decoder machine. Checks printed without the standard toner will appear visually correct, but they will be unreadable. The magnetic ink allows the decoder machines to read lines that are overprinted or obscured by marks such as cancellation stamps and signatures.
MICR Line Components
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The bottom line of a check must always be printed in the MICR typeface with the ANSI specified magnetic ink. The first field on the line is the Transit Field which identifies the bank or institution. The On-Us field follows with the bank account number. The final area is the amount field. This amount is filled in by the bank or another processing authority as part of the check cashing process. An auxiliary On-Us field appears on checks measuring longer than 6.5 inches which includes a check number.
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References
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