ATM Related Complaints on the rise.

ATM Related Complaints on the rise.
A lot of ATM Related complaints, have been addressed to Reserve Bank of India, in the last couple of months.

The rise in complaints is directly proportional to the increase of ATM Transactions, due to the, No Transaction Fee Facility from 1st April, 2009.
Roughly, since April 2009, the volumes have risen by 400%. And, the technology to cope with such a huge rise is not yet in place.

It is strange, that Banks, Technology Providers, were unable to visualize the huge jump in transactions.
In my view, the following couple of factors could be the reason for the stupendous spike in volumes.
01) The Average Withdrawal per transaction has come down, since the transactions are free.
02) Consumers are still not yet adequately educated about the benefit of Debit Card Transactions rather than Cash Transactions. 40% of the Cash withdrawal, is spent on locations, where a Debit Card could be employed to close the deal.

Now, it is expected that matters will be less chaotic in by this year-end, when Banks/Technology Providers will resolve the issues.

However, Reserve Bank of India, acting on the Customer’s Complaints, has issued a series of Notifications, to make life easier for the Customers. The latest Notification, is regarding Payment of Penalty Fees, for delayed reimbursement of wrong debits to the customer’s transactions.
The Complete Notification can be accessed at

http://rbi.org.in/scripts/NotificationUser.aspx?Id=5177&Mode=0

The above Notification is timely, however my Wish List is, that each ATM Booth should display the following Information

ATM ID
Customer Care Number
Customer Care Email ID



The present ATM Transaction Slip, contains the ATM ID, and it would be wonderful, if the Customer Care Number and Customer Care Email ID are also printed on the Transaction Slip.
This will make life easier for both the customers and the bank staff.

GONE IN 30 SECONDS…
An ATM must do these steps in 30 secs to make the transaction valid
1. An SBI ATM card holder swipes his card at an ICICI Bank ATM
2. The ATM links to its own core banking network to verify if it is an ICICI card
3. On finding it is an SBI card, it transfers data to the SBI Bank switch
4. The SBI switch connects to its core banking network and processes the transaction
5. After verification, the SBI switch communicates with the ICICI Bank switch
6. Finally, ATM dispenses the cash to the customer