A new eProduct – Receive funds to your ICICI Bank Visa Debit Card

            If you are holding an ICICI Bank Saving Bank account, you must have received an email from Shri Kusal Roy, regarding the launch of a new eProduct.

            The ICICI Bank Visa Debit Card is all the information the overseas sender requires to remit money to the associated ICICI Bank Visa Debit Card.

The highlights are:

01) Completely cashless transaction.

02)Amount is credited without minutes

03)Works 24*7, as there is no human intervention once the Sender remits the money.

04)NIL charges for the beneficiary, as all the charges are paid by the sender.

The above Product is built around 'Visa Fast Funds’, product.

The following are the Terms and Conditions

01) This service is regulated by the RBI and the following rules apply:

02)Remittance can only be received for purpose of personal maintenance. Business and investment transactions cannot be routed using this service.

03)A single transaction cannot exceed the Indian Rupee equivalent of USD 2,500.

04)Not more than 30 transactions can be received in a calendar year. As an added measure of safety, ICICI Bank will restrict the service to 2 transactions per month per beneficiary.

05)ICICI Bank additionally maintains its own risk and security profiling systems and reserves the right to decline suspicious transactions.

Go ahead and unlock the potential of your power-packed ICICI Bank Visa Debit Card!

The product should attract many takers, as the funds move from the Sender to the Beneficiary very fast and the Beneficiary no additional authentication to withdraw the funds from his/her accounts.

Re-disseminated by Prashant N. Banker by daytime, Blogger by night.

New NEFT Service Charges w.e.f 01/08/2012 – Be ready for less!!

NEFT was introduced to India's banking customers in 2005. Over the years, the volumes have zoomed up with many of our countrymen enjoying the speed of Safe ePayments.

Way back in 2008, Reserve Bank of India, rationalized the Service Charges on Electronic Payment Products.

With the increasing volumes and keeping in mind the demand from the customers, RBI today, has announced fresh rationalization of NEFT service charges.

The RBI notification number is RBI/2012-13/131 DPSS CO (EPPD) /98/04.03.01/2012-13, and can be viewed here.

Value Band	Maximum Charges (exclusive of service tax)
Amounts up to `10,000/-	`2.50/-
Amounts from `10,001/- to `1 lakh	`5/-
Amounts above `1 lakh up to `2 lakh	`15/-
Amounts above `2 lakh	`25/-

It is observed few banks are charging customers for NEFT transactions via their Net banking sites, and the majority of the transactions are below `10,000/-.

Hence, to encourage small ticket transactions, RBI has introduced a new slab of upto `10,000/-

RuPay Debit Card - India’s Own Card launched.

On 26/03/2012, India's own Card. 'Rupay', was launched.

The top 5 features of the launch are : -

1. Rupay payment network was inaugurated by Shri G. Padmanabhan, Executive Director, Reserve Bank of India.
2. Rupay Debit Card launched
3. Rupay Prepaid Card launched
4. Rupay Credit Card to be launched soon.
5. Rupay Debit Card to be accepted at 91,000+ ATM's and 6,00,000+ POS terminals all Pan-India.
6. Bank of India and Union Bank of India, are the first Banks' to offer Rupay Debit Cards to their account holders.
7. POS terminals of Axis Bank, Bank of Baroda, Corporation Bank and State Bank of India, will accept Rupay Debit \ Pre-paid Cards in the initial phase.
8. No initial participation fee and quarterly minimum processing fees. This would encourage Regional Rural Banks, Co-operative Banks and smaller commercial banks to offer ePayments to their account holders.

At present 26.80 crs debit cards have been issued by Indian Banks and in the near future, this number will go up, with more account holders opting for ePayments.

Now, with 'Rupay' in the field, the transaction costs for Banks are expected to go down substantially, Banks will be able to encourage ePayments.  

RTGS service charges for members – w.e.f 01/oct/2011. Are you aware of it?

RTGS service charges for members – w.e.f  01/oct/2011. Are you aware of it?

Reserve Bank of India, DPSS, vide Notification No.RBI/2011-12/166,DPSS (CO) RTGS No.388/04.04.002/2011-2012, dt.September 05, 2011, has sought to introduce RTGS Service charges for members.

The notification can be accessed @ http://www.rbi.org.in/scripts/NotificationUser.aspx?Id=6698&Mode=0

The main aim for the charges is twofold:-

01)  Recovery of operational costs;

02)  To bring in further efficiency in the operations and the liquidity flows in the RTGS system.

The second one is more important, and the various participants in the RTGS cycle i.e Remitting Banks, Remitting customers, Beneficiary Banks, Beneficiary Banks will take some time to adapt to.

The charges comprise of 3 components,

(i)                 Membership fee,

(ii)               Transaction fee and

(iii)              Time-varying tariff.

Yes, you have read it right, time-varying tariff. Time-varying tariff is common across other service industries, but this is the first of its kind in the banking industry.

  

The time-varying tariff  is as under:-

Block	Time of settlement at the Reserve Bank of India		Charge per transaction
	From	To
1	09:00 hours	12:00 hours	Nil
2	After 12:00 hours	15:30 hours	Rs 1.00
3	After 15:30 hours	17:30 hours	Rs 5.00
4	After 17:30 hours		Rs 10.00

The maximum charges that can be recovered from the customers including the time-varying tariff is,

RTGS Transaction	Maximum customer charges
Inward transactions	Free
Outward transactions
Rs.2 lakh to Rs.5 lakh	Rs.25 + applicable time varying tariff subject to a maximum of Rs.30/-.
Above Rs.5 lakh	Rs.50 + applicable time varying tariff subject to a maximum of Rs.55/-.

In my next post, will discuss in detail about the contents of this notification.