Reserve Bank of India has waived the processing or service charges for member banks till March 31, 2011. Accordingly, member banks participating in NEFT need not pay any processing or service charges to Reserve Bank of India. Further, processing or service charges to be levied by the member banks from their customers have also been rationalised by Reserve Bank of India as under : –
- Free, no charges to be levied from beneficiaries
- For transactions up to Rs 1 lakh
- For transactions above Rs 1 lakh and up to Rs 2 lakhs
- For transactions above Rs 2 lakhs
- Inward transactions at destination bank branches (for credit to beneficiary accounts)
- Outward transactions at originating bank branches (charges for the remitter)
Note: Charges applicable for transferring funds from India to Nepal using the NEFT system (under the Indo-Nepal Remittance Facility Scheme), are as under –
- Originating bank branch in India – Maximum Rs 5 (+ Service Tax) per transaction.
- State Bank of India in India – Rs 20 (+ Service Tax) per transaction if the beneficiary maintains an account with Nepal SBI Ltd. (NSBL).
- State Bank of India shares this amount equally with NSBL. NSBL would not charge any additional amount for crediting the account of the beneficiary.
- In case the beneficiary does not maintain an account with NSBL, an additional amount would be charged @ Rs 50 (+ Service Tax) for remittances up to Rs 5,000 and Rs 75 (+ Service Tax) for remittances above Rs 5,000.
The charges for the Indo-Nepal Remittance Facility Scheme would, thus, be a minimum of Rs 25 (+ Service Tax) or a maximum of Rs 100 (+ Service Tax) depending on the value of transaction and the manner in which credit is afforded to the beneficiary.
Originating bank branches have been advised to recover the entire charges from the remitter as per the structure detailed above and pass on the appropriate amount to SBI after retaining their share (of Rs 5 + Service Tax).