Mumbai Dec 31 PTI Using ATMs beyond the permissible free transactions for cash as well as non-cash purposes will cost more from Saturday As per the Reserve Bank directive issued in June the banking customers would be required to pay Rs 21 per transaction with effect from January 1 2022 for transactions beyond the free permissible limit Presently banks are allowed to charge Rs 20 for such transactions through ATMs Customers would however continue to be eligible for five free transactions inclusive of financial and non-financial transactions every month from their own bank ATMs They would also be eligible for three free transactions from other bank ATMs in metro centres and five in non-metro centres The RBI had earlier allowed banks to increase interchange fee per transaction from Rs 15 to Rs 17 for financial transactions and from Rs 5 to Rs 6 for non-financial transactions in all centres with effect from August 1 2021 The charges have been increased to meet the increasing cost of ATM deployment and expenses towards ATM maintenance incurred by bankswhite label ATM operators as also considering the need to balance expectations of stakeholder entities and customer convenience It may be noted here that the central bank had set up a committee in June 2019 under the Chairmanship of the Chief Executive Indian Banks Association to review the entire gamut of Automated Teller Machine ATM charges and fees with particular focus on interchange structure for ATM transactions There were 115605 onsite ATMs and 97970 off-site automated teller machines as on March 31 2021 About 90 crore debit cards issued by different banks were outstanding at end-March 2021 The first ATM in India was set up in 1987 by HSBC in Mumbai In the following twelve years about 1500 ATMs were set up in India In 1997 the Indian Banks Association IBA set up Swadhan the first network of shared ATMs which allowed interoperable transactions PTI NKD CS MKJ

Mumbai Aug 23 PTI Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will be visiting the financial capital for two days starting on Tuesday to meet key stakeholders She will begin the day with a meeting with officials from the Income Tax department in the Bandra Kurla Complex business district and follow it up with deliberations on the indirect tax side by meeting officials from goods and services tax and customs departments according to a tweet from her office Sitharaman is also meeting industry leaders in a gathering organised by lobby grouping CII This is the first visit by the finance minister since the onset of the pandemic and comes at a time when a greater focus is on the government for aiding recovery because high inflation constrains the RBI On the second day of the visit Sitharaman will be undertaking an annual performance review of public sector banks in BKC itself according to the tweet This will be followed with an event organised by Indian Banks Association IBA to launch Enhanced Access and Service Excellence EASE 40 in the same business district it said The minister is also scheduled to address a press conference with select journalists on Wednesday afternoon officials said Sitharaman on Monday announced a Rs 6 lakh crore National Monetisation Pipeline NMP that will look to unlock value in infrastructure assets across sectors ranging from power to road and railways Projects have been identified across sectors with roads railways and power being the top segments PTI AA MR MR