Banking: Checks in Braille

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Checking services in U.S. banks range from automatic bill paying to zebra-striped checkbooks. But until now the banks have largely ignored the special needs of the 1,000,000 present or potential customers who are blind. Last week Manhattan's Chemical Bank New York Trust Co. produced a solution to one difficult problem of the sightless: how to write a check without aid. The bank showed off a Braille checkwriter that consists of an aluminum plate into which the sightless insert a special check. Guided by cutouts in the device, they can write the necessary data. There are also 35 perforated Braille openings through which the blind can record the information for their own checkbook balancing. Monthly statements will be sent out in Braille.