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Our Bureau

Mumbai, Sept. 11 The Reserve Bank of India may fix maximum charges on the fees charged by banks on outstation cheque clearance and online fund transfers through RTGS and NEFT.

If the proposed charges are anything to go by, banks’ fee incomes could be hit substantially. But, the reduction in revenue may be offset by increase in volumes, if more people use online transactions, said bank officials.

A senior official from a public sector bank, in charge of retail operations, said that RBI’s proposal to fix maximum charges will impact banks’ fee incomes.

“Due to the pressure on margins, banks have very little scope to earn from core interest income. So far, we are only obliged to display the charges and ensure that the charges are uniform to all customers. If RBI does fix these charges, we will find it difficult to earn fee income. But if the transaction volumes improve, we can make up the loss of income,” he said.

In its approach paper, released on Thursday, the RBI said that charges levied by banks for electronic payment services were not uniform and each bank followed its own policy.

While some banks levied charges based on the number of transactions, some others went by the amount to be transferred, some banks charged multiple slabs based on amount with a base minimum stipulation, and some had different charges for local and outstation transactions.

Although RBI offered electronic products free of charge to banks, the multiplicity of slabs levied by banks and lack of transparency in norms adopted by them for various segments of customers has led to confusion in minds of customers, acting as a hindrance to the overall growth of the electronic payment products, the report said.

“Given the cost and risks involved in handling paper instruments, banks need to favourably price electronic products and a situation where electronic products are costlier than paper products is inexplicable,” the report said

Banks should rationalise and bring uniformity in the mode and amount of service charges of electronic payment products and outstation cheques. Customers should get the benefit of the waiver of charges and banks should rationalise the charges, RBI said.

The RBI has proposed the maximum charges for these services as in the table.

More Stories on : RBI & Other Central Banks | E-Commerce & E-Business

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