Free withdrawals from third-party ATMs is soon set to come down from five a month to two for account holders in cities. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has asked banks to continue with the existing facility for rural ATMs and provide them details of the number of machines that are there in villages.
The downside for customers is that if there is no home bank ATM nearby and they have exhausted their free usage, they will have to pay up to Rs 20 for a cash withdrawal from a third-party ATM.
Banks have been lobbying for a cap on free usage and an increase in the fee that they pay each other for their customers using other banks' ATMs. Their argument is that the free access is being misused and accountholders have increased their frequency of withdrawals. This results in a loss to the card-issuing bank. At the same time, ATM deployers are complaining that they are facing an increase in charges following RBI and policy directives on new security features.
