NEFT Charges Waved Off by RBI from Jan 2020

Come January 2020, and customers may not have to pay any charges for transactions done through the popular NEFT system.

A proposal in this regard has been mooted by the RBI to give impetus to digital transactions on the third anniversary of demonetization.

The central bank has also proposed that FASTags would be enabled to pay for parking fees and even at fuel stations. Digital payments constituted a high 96 percent of total non-cash retail payments from October 2018 to September 2019.

During the same period, the National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) and Unified Payments Interface (UPI) systems handled 252 crore and 874 crore transactions with year on year growth of 20 percent and 263 per cent, respectively.

"This rapid growth in the payment systems, inter-alia, has been facilitated by a series of measures taken by the Reserve Bank of India," the central bank said in a statement on furthering digital payments.

Now to further empower every citizen with an "Exceptional (e) Payment Experience", and provide her access to a bouquet of options, the RBI said it proposes to "mandate banks not to charge savings bank account customers for online transactions in the NEFT system with effect from January 2020".

It also plans to operationalise the 'Acceptance Development Fund' to increase acceptance infrastructure with from January 1, 2020.

A committee would also be set up to assess the need for plurality of QR codes and merits of their co-existence or convergence from both systemic and consumer viewpoints.

Further, the central bank has plans to permit all authorised payment systems and instruments for linking with National Electronic Toll Collection (NETC) FASTags.