Banks have started charging customers for almost everything. I was referring to the schedule of the charges today and found there are charges listed for 194 different services. Surprisingly there is no huge chaos yet, which RBI and government would also have expected, maybe because people don’t know the detailed schedule of charges yet.
A majority of the charges are completely unethical. On one side government is talking about having a cashless society and promoting online transactions. On the other side, Banks are charging for everything. How is this system going to work? Take for example Cheque page costs 5 Rs now and online banking charges increased up to 55 Rs depending on the time of day you do that. Passbook printing costs 75 Rs per 25 transactions + 100 Rs per passbook. There are charges scheduled for the each outstation cheque you deposit for clearing. Charges if you pay for petrol, railway tickets, government services and schools and university fees by card or online payment. Charges if your total debit transactions exceed 50 in 6 months. And as I already mentioned above, 194 ways are being created to collect charges from buyers.
There are two possibilities I can see here:
First is either Banks are imposing the charges on the users to recover the cost of bad loans and NPAs they have created, and the cost of Jan Dhan Accounts they have opened.
Or the second possibility is the Indian banking system is moving towards interest removal and financial reform where….
1) In next 5-10 years, Interest rates in India will see the bottom. You won’t get anything for keeping money in the bank in any type of account. And will pay may be a tiny amount of interest for taking loans from the banks.
2) Banks would turn into business shops rather a service organization and will earn more from charges and not from interest.
3) People will stop earning interest and will have to work for livelihood or will have to invest in markets.
4) Markets and businesses will be full of money because of almost no interest to be paid.
2 and 3 finally will lead the country towards more productivity.
I would welcome suggestions and comments of others here which will help everyone understand the perspective.
Image courtesy: bigdecisions.com