New RBI rules on interchange fee, bulk clearing facility effective from today

Under the rules, the interchange fee on ATM transactions is ₹17 instead of ₹15, while National Automated Clearing House (NACH) is available throughout the week, instead of only on bank working days.

New directions issued by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), raising interchange fee on automated teller machine (ATM) transactions, along with making the bulk clearing facility available round the clock, came into effect from Sunday, as directed by the central bank while making these announcements.

On June 10, the RBI raised the interchange fee on financial transactions from ₹15 to 17, while that for non-financial transactions was revised from ₹5 to ₹6. Interchange fee is paid by the bank that has issued a card, to the bank where the cardholder uses the card to withdraw cash.

Another rule which became effective starting Sunday is the availability of the National Automated Clearing House (NACH) on all days of the week. On June 4, while making monetary policy announcements, in which repo and reverse repo rates were kept unchanged, RBI governor Shaktikanta Das also laid out certain additional measures to mitigate the impact of the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic. Making NACH available throughout the week was among the mitigating measures announced by the central bank.

Earlier, customers could avail this facility only on bank working days, from Monday to Friday. NACH is a bulk payment system operated by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). It helps facilitate credit transfers such as payment of dividend, interest, salary and pension. Payments pertaining to electricity, gas, telephone, water, loans, mutual funds investments and insurance premium, too, are facilitated by this service.