Next time your online transaction or money transfers get delayed, you will be entitled to get penalty and interest on the delay, thanks to a new Reserve Bank of India (RBI) circular. The circular issued last week said that in cases of delayed credits, banks resort to value-dating of the credit in the customer’s account to avoid payment of penalty, which is not in accordance with the instruction issued by RBI in this regard. This is being viewed seriously and is in violation of our instructions, the circular said, adding penal interest of 10.5 per cent would have to be paid for such delays. “RBI will invoke penal action against banks that do not implement the new National Electronic Fund Transfer (NEFT) guidelines in the next 15 days,” said RBI executive director, G Padmanabhan. As per the guidelines, banks are supposed to pay penal interest at the current RBI repo rate (which is at present at 8.5 per cent) plus 2 per cent for the period of delay. So for example, if you are transferring Rs 50,000, and it gets delayed by two days, you will be entitled to penal interest of 10.5 per cent of Rs 50,000 for two days. Padmanabhan said that it was found that banks were not following the NEFT guidelines properly. “Banks may forthwith put up a stop to this practice and strictly adhere to the extant instructions of paying penal interest at the stipulated rate to the customers suo-moto, without waiting for a claim from the customers,” said RBI in a circular. “Many banks were not providing confirmation receipts of fund transfer to the sender. Only the receivers received confirmations against both concerned parties receiving messages and that was a problem,” he said. Padmanabhan was in Chennai for launch of Tamilnad Mercantile Bank’s mobile banking services. Stating mobile banking as an example, he said, banks have not made an attempt to familiarise mobile banking services to customers and have not done all the required rules to meet customer protection. As on October 2011, of the 52 banks, which got a nod from the RBI to provide mobile banking services, only 44 banks were providing the service, he observed. There were 22.45 lakh transactions worth Rs 161 crore, which is 9 per cent growth on a month-on-month basis. “The numbers are impressive, but not heartening,” said Padmanabhan.
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