Bank Customers Brace To Shell Out More On Bank ATM Charges

As per the notice dated June 21 released by the RBI, banks have been asked to get their ATM machines reconfigured such as to accommodate newly released bank notes. The apex bank has come out with the circular that mandated control for ATMs.

In lieu of the same, banks are foreseeing an expenditure which will increase their cost by 25% and against it banks have sought permission from the banker's bank to hike the ATM rates with effect from July 31, 2018.

As per the agency report, CATMI director general Lalit Sinha said, "The white-label ATM operators are already under tremendous financial stress and the cost of additional investments required to meet the RBI stipulated security standards will further increase their transactions cost by at least 25 per cent".

The ATM fee is currently pegged as just Rs. 15 which was fixed in the year 2012.

In light of the added cost to comply with the regulatory mandate put forth by the RBI, the banks have also decided to reduce the number of free ATM transactions on a month on month basis. As per the current regime, 8 transactions are free, of which 5 are allowed for free from the same bank ATM and three at other bank's ATM.

Also it is being considered to push the transaction cost higher by Rs. 10 to Rs. 25. On the sidelines, some of the key areas raised include an increase in the debit card to ATM ratio which can be dealt "in the form of an increase in the interchange fee paid by the card issuers to the ATM deployers".

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