The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued new guidelines on August 1, Sunday, making bulk clearing available 24 hours a day and increasing interchange costs. Salary and pension payments, EMIs, and ATM withdrawals would all be impacted by the changes.
In June, the central bank increased the interchange fee for financial transactions to help banks cover the expenses of ATM installation and maintenance. From 15 to 17, the new charges have been raised. In the meantime, the interchange fee for non-financial transactions has increased to INR 6 from INR 5.
The last time the interchange charge was changed was in August of 2012. Customers can now perform five free transactions, both financial and non-financial, using their bank’s ATMs under the new guidelines. Other banks will be able to conduct three free transactions in metro centres and five free transactions in non-metro centres.
If the customer exceeds the free transaction limit, the bank can charge up to INR 20 per transaction. From January 1, 2022, the RBI has announced that banks will be able to raise customer charges to INR 21 per transaction “to compensate the banks for the higher interchange fee and given the general rise in costs.”
A merchant who processes a credit card or debit card payment is charged an interchange fee by banks.
Except for cash deposit transactions, these fees will also apply to cash recycler machines.
NACH has only been offered during bank working days, typically Monday through Friday. On bank holidays and even gazetted holidays, auto-debit instructions from bank account holders were not processed. Additionally, because most organisations employ NACH for salary credits, they did not occur on holidays.
New RBI rules requiring the National Automated Clearing House (NACH) to be operational 24 hours a day, seven days a week, went into force today.
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) operates a bulk payment system for one-to-many credit transfers known as NACH. This includes things like wage, pension, dividend, and interest payments. It also makes payments for EMI instalments on loans, insurance premiums, utility bills for electricity, gas, telephone, and water, and mutual fund investments easier to collect.
“In order to improve customer convenience and utilise the 24×7 availability of real-time gross settlement (RTGS), NACH, which is now available on bank working days, is recommended to be made available on all days of the week from August 1, 2021,” Das stated.
All of the above transactions can now be completed at any time, on any day of the week, thanks to the new adjustments. Following the bi-monthly monetary policy review in June, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said that the NACH would be available on all days of the week to better serve clients.All of the above transactions can now be completed at any time, on any day of the week, thanks to the new adjustments. Following the bi-monthly monetary policy review in June, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said that the NACH would be available on all days of the week to better serve clients.