ATM and e-transaction Charges Waived off to Help Cash-strapped People

On Monday, NPCI (National Payments Corporation of India) and banks were advised to waive off e- transaction charges till 31^st December in order to help people deal with the cash crunch caused due to demonetization. NPCI followed the advice and waived off switching fee for all RuPay issuing and acquiring member banks till 31^st December for all e-commerce and POS transactions. NPCI is a major player in the card payment industry, with Rupay accounting for more than 30 crore cards of the 69 crore cards in circulation. Its decision to waive charges is also likely to influence rivals MasterCard and Visa to bring down their charges as well.
 
The government has also advised to set up a special task force under S.S Mudra, Deputy RBI Governor, to accelerate the process of recalibration of over 2 lakh ATM machines across the country. The recalibration is required to enable machines dispense the new Rs. 2000 currency notes, which the old ones were unable to do because of size mismatch.

 

This decision came after the PM’s meeting with the bureaucrats and RBI officers to address the problems caused by demonetization of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes. Apart from waiving off additional charges, the government has also extended the use of old currency notes from Monday to 24^th November for paying utility bills.

A couple of other decisions were also taken to speed up the disbursement of cash in rural areas: