New Delhi: In a recent notification, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has allowed the banks to raise the charges for cash and non-cash ATM transactions beyond the threshold of the free monthly limit. From next year onwards, bank customers will have to pay Rs 21 per transaction instead of Rs 20 if they exceed the monthly limit of free transactions.
What are the banks' charges?
Most private and public banks in India currently allow five free ATM transactions (inclusive of financial and non-financial transactions) in urban cities and towns from their own bank ATMs. In case you have exhausted the monthly limit, then there are small charges by the bank that customers need to bear to keep the ATMs functional.
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Besides, these charges, effective August 1, 2021, banks are also allowed to increase interchange fees per transaction from Rs15 to Rs17 for financial transactions and from Rs5 to Rs6 for non-financial transactions in all centres, according to the RBI circular.
But some private banks are offering unlimited free ATM transactions to their customers including IndusInd Bank and IDBI Bank.
IDBI Bank offers free ATM transactions in line with the RBI prescribed minimum free limits. It also offers five free transactions at its own ATMs while in other Bank ATMs, it offers three transactions free at six metro locations and five transactions free at other locations. “The bank however offers unlimited free ATM transactions in few select product variants as per the product design," informed Jorty Chacko, Executive Director of IDBI Bank to the business publication Mint.
IndusInd Bank also offers unlimited free ATM transactions at any bank ATM in India. “Unlimited Free ATM Withdrawal with your IndusInd Bank Debit Card across any ATM in India," says the bank's website.
In fact "Citi Bank still offers unlimited free transactions," as per the BankBazaar website.
Meanwhile, the country's largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) allows unlimited transactions at State Bank Group (SBG) ATMs for those customers who maintain an average balance of more than Rs25,000 in their savings accounts. Those maintaining an average balance of more than Rs1,00,000 in their savings accounts will also be eligible for unlimited transactions at SBG ATMs as well as other banks ATMs. SBI had revised its ATM withdrawal rules on 1 July 2020.