NEFT charges! You pay this much for your transactions, but soon, it will be free

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) made some major announcement in June, 2019 policy. Among these was the waiving off charges imposed in the Real Time Gross Settlement System (RTGS) and National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT). Instructions for this will be soon communicated to banks. Generally, the central bank levies minimum charges on banks for transactions, which are routed through RTGS. Banks in turn, transfer the burden on customers by levying charges on this digital transaction mode. That is why, in order to provide an impetus to digital funds, RBI decided to do away with charges levied on transactions processed in the RTGS and NEFT system. 

Both charges in NEFT and RTGS differ from bank to bank. 

Talking about the move, Dr. Soumya Kanti Ghosh, Group Chief Economic Adviser at SBI said, “Transactions from RTGS+NEFT channel has increased from Rs 75.5 trillion in Apr’14 to Rs 169.0 trillion in Apr’19. Now the decision to do away with the charges levied by the RBI for transactions processed in the RTGS and NEFT systems is a welcome step and will give further boost to the digital fund transfers.”

However, Ghosh stated that, “This move will cost around Rs 2000 crore to RBI.” Either way, customers who carry hefty NEFT transactions will welcome the news, as they will not have to pay any service fees to banks. 

While we await for final guidelines on the above mentioned moves. Here’s how various major banks charge you over your NEFT  transactions. 

Any cash transaction via NEFT upto Rs 10,000, comes with a charge of Rs 2.50, while above Rs 10,000 but upto Rs 1 lakh - the charge is Rs 5 here. Meanwhile, if transaction is above Rs 1 lakh to Rs 2 lakh, then a customer has to pay extra Rs 15 as fees, whereas above Rs 2 lakh NEFT he or she has to pay Rs 25. These charges are levied by lenders like State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Punjab National Bank and Bank of Baroda. While HDFC Bank does not have any charge on NEFTs carried online, but does have fees applicable if the transaction carried via branches. 

What is NEFT?

Being launched since 2005, this platform is a nation-wide payment system. Here, any customer can transfer funds electronically from any bank branches to other individuals who are having similar bank account or other banks as well. The transactions in this platform are settled in batches and have different timings. This means, any transfer made after a specified batch time, the customer will have to wait till next designated schedule for successful transactions. 

One can carry a NEFT transaction both offline and online. To carry out NEFT transaction at bank branch, you will have to visit and submit details of the transaction in a piece of paper given by the lender. If the account is within the same bank, the time period for completion of the transaction is generally on the same day in a few hours. If transfer is done in other bank account, then time taken can be a whole day or even may take upto 2 days. 

In regards to online mode, you will have to add payee details either be same or other bank account. After adding payee, one has to wait at least 30 minutes to carry the transactions.