Free ATM usage Curbed

ONLY 5 TRANSACTIONS IN A MONTH
Not more than Rs 10k from other ATMs ... RBI has put a cap on thirdparty ATM withdrawal (When a cardholder is using other bank’s ATM) at Rs 10,000 per transaction and also limited the number of such transactions to five in a month. For more than five thirdparty transactions in a month, one has to pay Rs 20 per transaction.However, there will be no such limit when a cardholder is using his/her own ATMs. A senior official, who heads the ATM operation of a private sector bank, said the new scheme will be effective from October 1, 2009. RBI has already made all ATM transactions, including thirdparty ones, free of any extra charge. This has led to increase in the number of transactions taking place at third-party ATMs. The banker said that many customers started misusing the provision by withdrawing small amounts — even Rs 100 and that too almost daily. Your bank pays around Rs 20 per transaction to the other bank when you use its ATM to withdraw money. Even if you withdraw Rs 100 from any other ATM, your bank pays Rs 20 to that bank. This increases cost of operations for banks substantially. So, banks requested RBI to put a cap on the number of third-party withdrawals. Banks had also asked for a minimum withdrawal amount of Rs 1,000 for third-party transaction. But, RBI did not accept this demand as it would have affected small depositors.

Duvvuri Subbarao - New RBI Governer

Dr. Duvvuri Subbarao will be the new governor of Reserve Bank of India. He will take charge on September 05- the day when the present governor Y V Reddy term comes to end. Ending weeks of speculation over the man who will preside over the country's economic policy for the next five years, Finance Minister P Chidambaram announced the Finance Secretary D Subbaro's name at a press conference here on Monday.
Superseding the two hot contenders in the race- deputy governor Rakesh Mohan, in particular and deputy chairman of Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia- as the government's ultimate choice for the RBI governor, D Subbarao- a pragmatist with a deep and close knowledge of monetary policies has a challenging time ahead in the wake of inflation hovering around 12.50 percent mark.
His job as the RBI governor is decided at least for a few months to lower down the inflation but without paralysing growth.
Dr. Subbarao is presently holding the post of Finance Secretary in the Ministry of Finance. Prior to this, he was Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs in the Ministry of Finance. He also served Secy to PM's economic advisory council. He has also held significant posts in this area and achieved wide experience on issues in public finance. As a finance secretary he was the point person between the RBI and the government which has been desperate to curb prices.
He is said to be firm on rolling back inflation, which he once termed as “the king of tax on the poor”, to a single-digit level.
What made his way to the post of RBI governor ahead of the chief contender deputy governor Rakesh Mohan, though is not clear, but certainly outgoing governor's reluctance to accept a one-year extension helped him in the long run. Reddy wanted a three-year extension to his term.
An IIT-Kanpur alumnus, D Subbarao belongs to the 1972 IAS batch. He had topped the civil services exam in 1972 and was assigned the Andhra Pradesh cadre. Subsequent to joining the IAS, he did his MS in Economics from Ohio State University (1978) and was a Humphrey Fellow at MIT during 1982-83. He did his Ph. D in Economics and worked as an economist at the World Bank from 1999-2004.
The RBI governor is the second most important body in India's financial hierarchy after the finance minister. Because, it is the one, which controls the monetary policy, which eventually decides the direction and status of the country