Manipal, SNSP and MSP compete for international cheque printing tender

L Lakshmanan, marketing manager, SNSP on a telephonic conversation with PrintWeek said, “Yes, we have bid for the tender and are confident about winning. The tender is still is being evaluated and the date of bidding too has been extended to 9 July.”

The decision to float an international tender to standardise cheques with MICR (Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR) was jointly taken by NBE and Ethiopian Bankers' Association (EBA) in an effort to counter forgery and expedite cheque clearing and settlement.

The closing bid date has been extended to 9 July. In addition to the three Indian companies mentioned, four more bidders had submitted their bids, including Ethiopian Trade-Contract (ET-CON), Sudan Currency Printing Press (SCCP), Tall printing and De La Rue.

Manipal Press is India's largest printing press in the private sector and only the second printing company in India (after Reserve Bank of India) to own the Intaglio press. Manipal Press has a professional team of over 1,800 printing specialists and caters to the needs of 1,500 plus clients spread across from America to Australia. ISO 9001:2000 certified Manipal Press also has QMS certification by NQA India, with UKAS and ANAB ISO 9001 accreditation.

SNSP, which was founded in 1995, is an Indian Bank Association approved security printing press. The company has been an active player in the field of security and digital variable data printing as well as business forms and lottery tickets.

Madras Security Printers has handled several security printing needs of various state government ministries, revenue authorities, immigration departments, banking sectors, electoral commission. The company has also worked on the Unique Identity Authority of India (UIDAI).

Proposals from the companies are currently being evaluated by a committee comprising the property and services management and clearing and settlement department heads of the NBE, along with advisers from commercial banks.

The evaluation process has been divided in to different phases: preliminary technical evaluation of mandatory requirements, a non-technical evaluation, reference site and financial evaluation. Once a proposal passes the technical evaluations, based on non-technical evaluation, bidders will be awarded marks out of hundred. This will make up 40% of the grade. The rest 60% of the weightage will be decided based on the financial evaluations.

However, during the initial technical review by procurement team at the National Bank and an advisor from the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia, ET-CON and SCCP were disqualified for not complying with the bidding requirements.

The winning security printing company would print 2,31,513 corporate cheque books with 50 leaves each, 1,54,345 cheque books with 100 leaves each and 21,198 and 12,050 personal cheque books with 25 and 50 leaves each, respectively. All of the cheques will have the same features, except for the logos of different banks, which will be printed at a later stage.