ATM cash withdrawal rules to change from 1 January 2022: Free withdrawal limit, new charges here

Bank customers will have to pay more than what they were paying earlier for cash withdrawal from ATMs. The hiked charges will be applicable once the free monthly limit gets exhausted. Customers have been receiving notifications of hiked charges from their respective banks. “With effect from 1st January 2022, ATM transaction charge rate beyond free limit of Rs. 20 + taxes would be revised to Rs. 21 + taxes, wherever applicable," reads a notice on the HDFC Bank website.

“Effective 1st January 2022, financial transaction fee above the free limit in Axis Bank or other bank ATMs will be INR 21 + GST," noted Axis Bank.

1) According to the RBI notification, customers will have to pay ₹1 more than what they were paying earlier to withdraw money

2) Starting 1 January 2022, customers will have to pay ₹21 per transaction, instead of ₹20 if they exceed the monthly limit of free transactions. "To compensate the banks for the higher interchange fee and given the general escalation in costs, they are allowed to increase the customer charges to ₹21 per transaction. This increase shall be effective from January 1, 2022," the RBI had said in a circular.

3) However, all bank customers with debit cards will be eligible for five free transactions (cash or non-cash transactions) at their own banks’ ATMs per month. 

4) Additionally, they will be eligible for three free transactions from other banks in metro cities and five free transactions in non-metro cities.

5) The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has permitted banks to boost charges on cash and non-cash ATMs beyond the free monthly limitations.

Source : LiveMint

Banking, ATM services hit as PSB employees go on 2-day strike. Details here

Banking and ATM services have been hit by the two-day nationwide strike call given by the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), an umbrella body of nine bank unions with over 10 lakh bank employees and officers.

The employees of several public sector banks, including State Bank of India (SBI), Punjab National Bank (PNB), and Bank of Baroda, are on a two-day strike -- December 16 and 17 -- to protest the proposed privatisation of the state-run lenders.

Earlier, PSBs had informed their customers that services might be hampered during the bank strike.

The unions operating under the aegis of UFBU are All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA), All India Bank Officers' Confederation (AIBOC), National Confederation of Bank Employees (NCBE), All India Bank Officers' Association (AIBOA), Bank Employees Federation of India (BEFI), Indian National Bank Employees Federation (INBEF), Indian National Bank Officers Congress (INBOC), National Organisation of Bank Workers (NOBW) and National Organisation of Bank Officers (NOBO).

Earlier, SBI, and three more banks, Punjab National Bank, Central Bank of India, and RBL Bank, had said their operations will be affected due to the bank strikes on December 16 and December 17.

"While Bank has made all arrangements to ensure normal functioning in its branches and offices, it is likely that work in our Bank may be impacted by the strike," PNB had said.

SBI also said its normal functioning is likely to be impacted by the two-day strike. SBI also said it had made necessary arrangements to ensure normal functioning at its branches during the strike.

RBL Bank had said its employees associated with the protesting unions may participate in the strike, which is at the industry level and is nowhere related to bank-level issues.

Source :  Livemint

IPO-bound India1 Payments installs 10,000 white-label ATMs

The IPO-bound India1 Payments, promoted by the Banktech Group of Australia and formerly known as BTI Payments, has said that it has crossed a milestone of deploying 10,000-white-lable ATMs which are labelled as India1ATMs, making it the largest player in the segment. The company has installed these machines mostly in semi urban and rural areas across 14 states and union territories, and this milestone makes India1 ATM the second largest white label ATM (WLA) brand in the semi-urban and rural areas across 14 states and union territories, and this milestone makes India1 ATM the second largest white label ATM (WLA) brand in the semi-urban and rural areas.

According to the latest data from the RBI as of September, there were 2.4 lakh ATMs in the country, of them around 28,00 are white-label machines.

The company has grown over 15 per cent over last year and account for more than 50 per cent of incremental ATMs deployed in this period.

India1ATM services over 72 million customer transactions and facilitates a gross transaction value of over Rs 13,600 crore every quarter on an average. It began operations in 2014 and since then it has installed more than a third of the WLAs.

In September, the Bengaluru-based company filed draft papers with Sebi for IPO and which is mix of fresh issues and offer for sale by promoters. The issue comprises a fresh issue of equity shares worth Rs 150 crore and an offer for sale of up to 10.31 million shares by existing shareholders and promoters.

K Srinivas, managing director and chief executive of India1 Payments, said "despite the pandemic, we have leveraged our network with an average deployment of over 300 ATMs per month for the previous four months".

Source :Economic Times