- Consulting with Canadians -

Alberta Finance Submission in Response to Finance Canada's 2006 Review of Financial Sector Legislation:

May 30, 2005

Mr. Gerry Salembier
Director, Financial Institutions Division
Financial Sector Policy Branch
Department of Finance
L'Esplanade Laurier
20^th Floor, East Tower
140 O'Connor Street
Ottawa ON K1A 0G5

Dear Mr. Salembier:

Re: Statement of Support for Cheque Imaging

The Treasury Management Division of Alberta Finance is responsible for managing the banking relationships of the Province of Alberta.

For the past year, our bank has been providing us with a CD containing the images of cheques that have cleared through our high volume (150,000 items per month) disbursement accounts. This is in addition to the delivery of the physical cheques.

We have been very pleased with this service. It has made our operations more efficient as it is much easier and quicker to find copies of cheques that have been requested by various government departments. The image quality has been excellent. We believe that when Truncation and Electronic Cheque Presentment is adopted, we will see further improvements in service and a reduction in the risks inherit with handling paper cheques.

We support the CPA's recommendations for amendments to the Bills of Exchange Act to facilitate a modernization of the cheque clearing process.

Yours sincerely,

David Hinman
Acting Senior Manager,
Banking and Cash Forecasting
dlh

cc: Roger Dowdall