Restriction on free ATM usage!!!

RBI has announced that from April 1, 2009 onwards withdrawl on the other ATM centers would be free of charge. That means if you are the ICICI Bank customer, you can use the HDFC or any other bank’s atm to withdraw the money without any charge. Previously the charge is taken from the customer.

Update: RBI has announced changes on ATM Transactions fees

But, again the complete free use of the ATM”s is restricted with few conditions. The reason behind this move is to avoid the huge loss for the bankers. If you are with drawing the money from HDFC atm using the ICICI debit card, for that transaction ICICI bank has to pay Rs18 to the HDFC bank. Previously this amount is collected from the customer. From the new rules, this fess has to be paid by the bank itself. It leads to huge loss for the banks. For example if a person taking Rs.100 also has to pay the transaction fees of Rs.18.

Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) has written a detailed report in this issue and provided the suggestions to solve this problem RBI has approved that and new rules will be effective from October 15,2009. The following are the restrictions to withdraw from the other ATMs:

1. Rs.10000 is the maximum withdrawal for each transaction.
2. Only first five transactions of the month will be free of charge. From the 6th transaction onwards they will charge you the fees.
3. There is no change in the withdraw money from Credit card. There always will collect the fees for each transaction.

ICICI Bank reported that they are lossing around Rs. 4-5 crore every month (Is it big loss for banks like ICICI?).

Banks will have to make modifications in their ATM operations so that every time a user exceeds his quota of five transactions, he gets an alert. For subsequent transactions, the interchange fee will be debited from his account. Banks are not yet ready for these modifications.

Now the banks started adding more burden to the customers. ICICI started charging for every online tranaction you have made from your net banking. It is not good as the RBI is just bending for all the bank requests. It is my opinion that the services of banks should go in the positive direction, not in the downwards. Hoping to see there won’t be any more burden on the customers shoulder. Please post your thoughts and the suggestions about this change. I am OK with this change, but restriction on the online banking is big problem for those who are doing most of the online transactions. What do you think?

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