Yesterday one of my friends named Padmini asked about the MICR code of my account for the online money transfer!

I had already asked my friend Prabhu regarding the same when being asked from one of my juniors. But dint remember the full context this time except that it belongs to a part of the Cheque. I told her what i remembered and said i would probably check and get back.

Then just googled and gathered some information on the same.

To be precise,

(a) MICR stands Magnetic Ink Character Recognition, a 9 digit number printed/present in the bottom middle portion of any financial documents (for ex, cheque).

This picture might help you to understand better. [courtesy: Standard Chartered Bank FAQ site, which you can find in the bottom where the links are provided].

(b) The main purpose of MICR is to uniquely identify the {BankName,BankLocation,Customer Account Number} with the single number.

(c) It is printed by the Magnetic Ink or Toner.

Since 1956 its in progress for effectively processing the documents for electronic capturing due to its reliability, durability and cost effectiveness.

The Printers having the capability to print the MICR code (with Magnetic Ink or Toner) would have the label 'MICR Enabled'.

Some related good links are here:

(1) MICR FAQ in Standard Charetered site is here.

(2) FAQ site on Marinter Systems Pvt Ltd is here

(3) MICR Repository gives you some good articles, sources, resources and history about it as well.

Hope it gives you some information about MICR. Some banks mandate the MICR code while doing an online transfer. Of course, seems to be saving the purpose of validation and/or authentication which is one more level than that of having to do with just the account number.