In order to further incentivise electronic transactions, the government on Wednesday announced that it has directed all public sector banks to lower the fees they charge for various forms of digital transactions up to March 31, 2017.
“In order to further promote digital and card payments, the Department of Financial Services, Ministry of Finance has issued a direction in public interest to all public sector banks, in accordance with which these banks shall not charge fees for transactions settled on Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) and Unified Payments Interface (UPI) in excess of rates charged for National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) for transactions above Rs 1,000, with service tax being charged at actuals,” the government said in a statement.
“For Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) transactions above Rs. 1,000, a further discount of fifty paise on these rates shall apply,” the statement added. NEFT transfers of up to Rs 10,000 attract a fee of Rs 2.5 per transaction.
Transactions between Rs. 10,000 and less than Rs. 1 lakh attract a fee of Rs. 5, those between Rs. 1 lakh and Rs. 2 lakh attract a fee of Rs. 15, and the fee for transactions above Rs. 2 lakh is Rs. 25. Service tax is charged on top of this. This follows the RBI’s notification last Friday in which it instructed banks to remove all charges on customers for transactions up to Rs.1,000 settled on IMPS, USSD or UPI systems between January 1, 2017 and March 31, 2017.
