Use any bank’s ATM to deposit cash into your Savings account

Soon, you may use any bank’s ATM to deposit cash into your savings account.

It is almost a decade since you stopped worrying about which ATM you are walking into to withdraw cash. Soon, you may have similar luxury when it comes to depositing cash into your savings account.

The Reserve Bank of India has given its nod to a pilot project with three banks, reported The Economic Times. Union Bank of India, Andhra Bank and Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative Bank are the three that have been shortlisted for the pilot, which will be undertaken over the next 2-3 months by NPCI, the umbrella organisation for payments in the country.

“We have got a green signal from the RBI for a pilot which we will start by the second week of August with three banks in the country,” said Dilip Asbe, chief operating officer at National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).

“We will be using dual machines with both cash depositing as well as cash dispensing facility and check how smoothly interoperable transactions are getting done,” he said.

The development, if it goes full scale, will solve branch duplication and save costs for banks. Once it becomes a reality, teller machines with cash depositing facility installed in ATM kiosks will be connected through the National Financial Switch working in a completely interoperable manner.

Bank customers can walk into any bank’s kiosk and deposit cash into the savings account of their own bank. “We have already decided the interchange fees,” Asbe said. “For transactions up to Rs 10,000 the fee will be Rs 25 and for any amount above that till Rs 50,000 the charge will be Rs 50,” he said, adding that RBI has kept a cap of Rs 49,999 for ATM deposits.

Japanese companies Hitachi and OKI have introduced such ATMs in the country.

Free accidental insurance upto Rs 10 lakh with ATM cards of banks