The new RBI rules that kick in today will streamline several banking transactions. From August 2, important bank transactions such as salary and pension transfer and EMI payments need not wait for a ‘working day.’

According to the changes to National Automated Clearing House (NACH) rules making bulk clearing facilities available round the clock. Earlier, employees had to wait for a working day for their salary to get credited. The guidelines were announced by RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das last month.

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NACH is a bulk payment system operated by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and it facilitates various types of credit transfers such as salary, dividend, interest, and pension. It also provides the facility for payment of electricity bill, gas, telephone, water, EMI loan, mutual fund investment and insurance premium payment is also provided.

According to the RBI, NACH has emerged as a prominent digital mode of Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) for beneficiaries, which helps in the timely and transparent transfer of government subsidies.  Currently, NACH services are available only on working days.

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Interchange fee

Also, from today new interchange fees will come into effect. Last month, the RBI had raised interchange fees for all financial transactions to help banks meet the costs of ATM deployment and maintenance. It had gone up from Rs 15 to Rs 17. The interchange fee for non-financial transactions was raised to Rs 6 from Rs 5.

Under the amended rules, customers can make five free transactions, both financial and non-financial, from ATMs of their banks. For ATMs of other banks, they will be allowed to make three transactions for free in metro centres and five transactions without charges in non-metro centres. Rest will be chargeable

Once free transactions are exhausted,  banks can charge the customer up to Rs 20 per transaction. RBI has said that lenders will be allowed to increase customer charges to ₹21 per transaction, to compensate the banks for the higher interchange fee.

 These charges will also apply to cash recycler machines, other than for cash deposit transactions.