Cheque Book in Malaysia: Requesting, Charges, and Managing Your Leaves

Who gets a cheque book in Malaysia

Cheque facilities attach to current accounts, personal or business. Opening a business current account at any major bank (Maybank, CIMB, Public Bank, RHB, Hong Leong, AmBank, Bank Islam and others) includes the first cheque book issue per that bank's process. Banks assess cheque facility eligibility and can withdraw it from accounts with repeated dishonours; Malaysia's central credit reporting means bounced cheques leave footprints.

Requesting a new cheque book, bank by bank

The universal channels across Malaysian banks:

• Requisition slip: every cheque book contains a request slip near the back; sign and submit it at the branch or drop-box.
• Branch counter: with your identification and account details.
• Digital banking: several banks accept cheque book requests through their online or app banking for eligible accounts (Maybank2u, CIMB Clicks and equivalents).

Books are typically ready or delivered within about 5 to 7 working days. Businesses should reorder when remaining leaves cover less than two weeks of normal issuance rather than when the book runs out.

What a cheque book costs: stamp duty and charges

Malaysia charges stamp duty of RM 0.15 per cheque leaf, collected by the bank when the book is issued: RM 3.00 on a 20-leaf book, RM 7.50 on a 50-leaf book, RM 15.00 on 100 leaves. Banks may add their own issuance charges per their fee schedules, and returned-cheque charges are separate and substantially higher.

The practical implication: every spoiled leaf is paid-for paper. A business that spoils five leaves a month to handwriting errors is not losing much in duty, but it is losing the reorder cycles, the numbering gaps in its register, and the time.

Anatomy of a Malaysian cheque leaf

Each leaf carries: the date boxes, payee line, amount-in-words line ("Ringgit Malaysia"), the RM figures box, the signature area, and the MICR code line along the bottom that machines read during eSPICK image clearing. Each leaf's serial number is its cheque number, the key your bank uses for stop payments and status checks. Nothing should ever be written or stamped in the bottom MICR band.

Managing leaves like a business (not a drawer full of stubs)

Three disciplines separate clean cheque operations from month-end chaos:

1. A register, kept automatically. Every issued leaf recorded with number, payee, amount, date. ChequePro does this at the moment of printing; its Chequebook Report shows used, cancelled and remaining leaves per book at a glance.
2. Cancelled leaves logged, not binned. A numbering gap with no explanation is an audit question. Mark spoiled leaves cancelled in the register.
3. Reconciliation against the statement. Issued-but-unpresented cheques are liabilities in waiting; the register plus the bank statement shows exactly what is still out there.