SBI to improve ATM services

Having started to charge customers for excess usage of automated teller machines (ATM), the country largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) has decided to improve its services and appoint a single vendor for maintenance of its ATMs.

Recently, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) allowed banks to charge their customers after the first five free transactions, starting from November 1.

“There are multiple vendors who are responsible for keeping up the maintenance of the ATMs, like one is responsible for air-conditioning, one for cleaning, one for running it, etc. This is becoming an issue. We have decided to appoint a single vendor who will be responsible for all the functions,” said SBI chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya in a press meet to discuss the bank’s second-quarter earnings.

She said a tender will be floated in December to approve the agency.

SBI has the largest network of ATMs in India - 45,000 as of June, according to RBI data.

SBI, like many other banks, has imposed charges for ATM transactions over a certain limit. Its customers can have five free transactions in SBI ATMs and three in other bank ATMs in metro cities.

If the free limit exceeds, SBI will charge its customers Rs 20 per financial transaction if they use other banks’ ATMs, and Rs 8 for non-financial transaction like balance enquiry etc. At its own ATMs, Rs 5 will be charged for additional transactions (both financial and non-financial).

If the average monthly balance of an SBI customer is Rs 25,000, then she can have unlimited transactions at their bank’s ATMs. If she keeps a monthly balance of Rs 1 lakh, she will have unlimited transaction facility at other banks’ ATMs as well.

HDFC Bank and Axis Bank are the other two large lenders that have announced they would charge customers if ATM transactions crossed a certain limit, from December 1.

HDFC Bank will charge Rs 20 for financial transactions and Rs 8.5 (excluding taxes) for non-financial transactions.

Axis Bank will charge Rs 20 (excluding taxes) for financial transactions and Rs 9.5 for non-financial transactions.

At other banks’ ATMs, HDFC and Axis Bank customers will be charged for more than three transactions. Earlier, five transactions were free at non-home bank ATMs.

The increase in charges done by the banks will be applicable to transactions in Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Bangalore and Hyderabad.

According to RBI data, the number of ATMs in the country stood at 166,894 as of June.