Pay 5% more for ATM transaction from January 1: Know the details

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Your ATM transaction will get costlier from the very first day of the new year. From January 1, one has to at least 5% more to the banks. According to Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) guideline all private and public sector banks are on the way of hiking ATM charges.

What’s the new charge

Effective January 1, 2022, bank customers will have to pay Rs 21 plus GST per financial transaction instead of Rs 20. However, the fee will be charged if anyone exceeds the number of free monthly transactions set by RBI.

Besides, for non-financial transactions one has to pay Rs 8.50 plus GST. This charge remains same as of now.

The central bank has allowed commercial banks to increase the fees for cash and non-cash ATM transactions beyond the free monthly permissible limit in order to compensate the banks for the higher interchange fee and the general escalation in costs.

Currently an individual can have five free financial and non-financial ATM transactions from the home bank in metro cities, and three financial and non-financial transactions from other bank’s ATM. Beyond this an individual has to pay additional charge for each transaction.

Financial and non-financial transactions

All cash related transactions like cash withdrawal, cash deposit etc. are come under financial transaction category.

On the other hand, checking balance, getting mini statement, PIN change, cheque book and ATM card issue request are categorised as non-cash transaction.

Currently apart from six metro cities (Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Hyderabad), customers in all other locations are permitted five financial and five non-financial transactions free of cost in a month.

Interchange fees also hiked

From August 1, 2021, the central bank allowed commercial banks to increase interchange fees per transaction in all centers from Rs 15 to Rs 17 plus GST for financial transactions and Rs 5 to Rs 6 plus GST for non-financial transactions.

In banking parlance, interchange fee is the fee that one bank charges a merchant who processes a credit card of debit card payment. This fee is supposed to cover the cost of accepting and processing card transactions.