No more ATM transaction fees in India

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has introduced a set of guidelines that will make access to all the ATMs almost free of cost. This move has been welcomed well by all the credit card customers across the country. You might have an account with a reputed bank which offers great service but has only a handful of ATMs in your city. It has been estimated that there are around 31,078 ATMs in the country as of December 2007.You can easily locate an ATM on almost every street if you have an account with ICICI or SBI but you if you have an account with some other bank you will have to pay for using the ATM of the banks. So you are forced to use the ATMs of other banks which charge a fee of Rs 56(minimum) for cash withdrawals and Rs 20 for balance enquiry.Thankfully, this scenario is set to change by next year as the RBI has asked all the banks to bring down the transaction cost to Rs 20 by March 31^st this year. It has also planned to completely eliminate this fee by April next year. Instant cheque clearance may also be introduced by then. With these innovative measures being introduced the numbers of credit card customers are certainly bound to increase.