Here are four changes that will impact salaries, pension, ATM withdrawals, among other things from August 1, 2021.
Here are the details:
NACH to be available 24x7
Bank customers will not have to worry that their salaries or pension will not be credited into their account as it is a Sunday or a holiday. Effective August 1, NACH, a bulk payment system operated by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) will be available all days of the week effective from August 1, 2021.
“In order to further enhance customer convenience, and to leverage the 24x7 availability of real-time gross settlement (RTGS), NACH which is currently available on bank working days, is proposed to be made available on all days of the week effective from August 1, 2021,” RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said while announcing the bi-monthly monetary policy review.
NACH facilitates one-to-many credit transfers such as payment of dividend, interest, salary and pension. It also facilitates collection of payments pertaining to electricity, gas, telephone, water, periodic instalments towards loans, investments in mutual funds and insurance premium.
ATM transactions to cost more
Effective August 1, 2021, banks are allowed to increase interchange fee per transaction from Rs 15 to Rs 17 for financial transactions and from Rs 5 to Rs 6 for non-financial transactions in all centres, the RBI said in a circular.
This means customers can continue to make five free transactions (inclusive of financial and non-financial transactions) every month from their own bank ATMs. They would also be able to do three free transactions from other bank ATMs in metro centres and five in non-metro centres.
From August 1, banks have increased interchange fee per transaction from Rs 15 to Rs 17 for financial transactions and from Rs 5 to Rs 6 for non-financial transactions in all centres.
ATMs are deployed by banks for serving their own customers and also provide services to other banks' customers as acquirers where they earn interchange income.
The RBI said the charges have been allowed to be increased given the increasing cost of ATM deployment and expenses towards ATM maintenance incurred by banks/white label ATM operators, as also considering the need to balance expectations of stakeholder entities and customer convenience.
India Post Payments Bank services to no longer be free
Customers of India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) will have to pay Rs 20 plus GST charge on every request for doorstep service (DSB). Till now, IPPB used to provide free doorstep service to its account holders. With the charges applicable now, there will be no limit on the transactions during a DSB visit for one customer. However, if the DSB serves another customer during the same visit, it will be considered separate delivery and charges will apply.
ICICI Bank to revise charges
ICICI Bank’s revised limits apply for cash transaction, ATM interchange and check book charges for domestic savings account holders. According to the bank’s website, the revision of charges will be applicable for all the cash transactions - deposit as well as withdrawal. The bank has allowed four free cash transactions per month and for cash transactions above this limits, the charges would be Rs 150 per transaction.