Zee Media Bureau
New Delhi: Saving account holders in the cities might soon have to limit their transaction from third party ATM as the number of free withdrawals is likely to come down to two from five a month, a daily newspaper has reported.
However in the rural areas the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has asked banks to continue with the existing facility, the paper further added.
At present, holders of savings accounts enjoy five free transactions per month at the ATMs of banks other than their own, while there is no such limit for use of own-bank ATMs.
Banks net off transactions at the end of the month between themselves and pay Rs. 15 per transactions plus taxes to each other irrespective of whether a withdrawal was within the limit in case of customers involved.
Public sector banks had a combined 72,340 branches, of which 37,672 had onsite ATMs, as of March 2013.
Indian Bank Association in January had recommended a change to include all the ATM transactions, including the own-bank ones, to 5 per month in view of rise in costs due to additional security measures being put in place following the Bangalore incident wherein a person was brutally attacked at the ATM.
Following the incident — where a woman employee of Corporation Bank was attacked by an intruder with a machete in November — security arrangements of 1.40 lakh ATMs of banks were reviewed leading to additional costs for manning ATMs.
IBA had suggested to the RBI to maintain the current practice of making an account holder pay Rs 20 per transaction for the ones beyond the limit it has proposed.
With PTI Inputs
