This could substantially reduce transportation costs and speed the collection or return of some checks, particularly for checks destined to geographically remote locations or for large-dollar checks. At the other end of the check processing cycle, a paying bank could run its returned check file against its check image file to create substitute returned checks.
This process would eliminate the need for a bank to run its entire presentment from the previous day through its sorters to pull the small number of checks that need to be returned unpaid.