What is the service?
The Register enables you to check the data on you in its database, makes possible the monitoring of the regular circulation of bank and post office cheques and payment cards, and provides clarifications regarding the operation of the Register. The service is free of charge.
The Interbank Register of Bad Cheques and Payment Cards is run by the Bank of Italy. Its electronic database contains:
- the identifying particulars of persons who have written bank or postal cheques lacking authorization or funding;
- the identifying data of bank or postal cheques lacking authorization or funding;
- the identifying data of bank and postal cheques not returned after the revocation of authorization;
- the identifying data of bank and postal cheques that have been reported as lost or stolen or have been blocked for other reasons;
- the identifying particulars of persons whose authorization to use payment cards has been revoked;
- the identifying data of payment cards revoked and those reported as lost or stolen;
- the identifying particulars of persons who have been fined or subjected to accessory administrative sanctions for issuing bank or postal cheques lacking authorization or funding;
- the identifying particulars of persons subjected to penal sanctions for violation of the obligations imposed as accessory administrative sanction.
The Register thus serves to prevent the irregular use of bank and postal cheques and payment cards and thus to enhance the security of these instruments and increase users' confidence in them.
Who can use it?
- natural persons under whose names the information is registered, or their heirs (including presumptive heirs), tutors, guardians and trustees;
- legal persons, such as companies, associations, entities and organizations, whose data can be requested by the natural person empowered to do so under their statutes or rules.
How?
- by request to the Bank of Italy. The form can be downloaded from this page or picked up at a branch. The request can be transmitted by post, certified e-mail or fax to any branch of the Bank of Italy that provides the service, attaching a photocopy of the applicant's identity document. The response will be sent to the postal or certified e-mail address specified in the request. You can also submit the request in person at any branch that provides the service; you must show an identity document and give your tax code. You can also have an agent apply for you; the agent must show the proxy and a photocopy of the principal's identity document. Here too, by request you can receive the response by post or certified e-mail.
- by request to the private-sector reporting institutions (banks, post offices and supervised financial intermediaries issuing payment cards), which are required to provide the personal data on file and can allow the applicant to consult data on payment cards and bank or postal cheques that have been lost, stolen, or blocked or are otherwise unauthorized;
- on the website of SIA, the Interbank Automation Company (www.sia.it), which supplies data on lost, stolen or blocked cheques but not the names of their holders. The data are updated daily.
Helpful information
Responsibility for the correctness of data entered in the database is assigned to reporting entities in the private sector (banks, post offices and supervised financial intermediaries issuing payment cards) and the public sector (prefects, the judicial authorities). Any objections or requests for correction or deletion must therefore be addressed to the reporting entity, which must delete or correct erroneous reports as quickly as possible. In defence of your rights and interests you can appeal to the Banking and Financial Arbiter (ABF), an independent body for out-of-court settlement of disputes between customers and banking or financial intermediaries, to the privacy agency (Garante per la protezione dei dati personali), or to the courts.
