Withdraw Cash from any ATM from Apr.1, Free of charge

Thinking of changing your Bank because the ATM of that Bank is not near to your Office or Home ! Forget it , No more would you be bothered about where is the ATM of your Bank located. Come April 1st,2009 and you can withdraw money and do Balance Enquiry from any ATM irrespective of which Bank you hold you account without any charges being deducted for this service.

Earlier some banks had created their own network where ATM withdrawal of the participating bank customers was not charged. However, there was lack of awareness and clarity on these mechanisms. The customer was not aware of what charges will be deducted on using other bank’s ATM as the charges differed from one bank to another. There was a confusion among the customers as to what will be the charge for withdrawing Cash from their Bank Accounts from some other Bank’s ATM and this facility was being used by customers only in case of extreme emergencies (where charges do not matter!).

RBI had issued a circular on March10,2008 directing all Banks to not charge more than Rs. 20 with effect from March 31,2008 for use of any Bank’s ATM. The circular further mentioned that with effect from Apr1, 2009 all banks should provide these service FREE of cost to the customers.

What will still be Charged ?

Banks may still charge customer for the following Services :

a) cash withdrawal with the use of credit cards
b) cash withdrawal in an ATM located abroad.

If you are interested in reading the Notification of the RBI in this Regard, click the link below

RBI Notification for Customer Charges for Use of ATM’s for Cash Withdrawal & Balance Enquiry

Update : 22nd August ,2009

From Oct 15, only 5 'other bank ATM' transactions a month would be Free

The party is Over for bank cutomers who had been awarded the liberty of Free withdrawal from any ATM just 5 months back. Based on the demand from Indian Bank's Assocation, RBI has agreed to limit the numbers of free withdrawal from "Third Party" ATM to 5 per month. If you withdraw more than 5 times from other Bank's ATM, you may have to pay a fee ranging from Rs 12 -Rs 20 for this. However, banks have been given the liberty not to charge any fee for more than 5 transaction per month in case they wish to do so.

RBI is also limiting the amount of cash that can be withdrawn from "Other Bank's" ATM to Rs. 10,000 per transaction.

(This post has been updated on 22nd August, 2009 in view of new development which impacts the relevance of this post)