RBI’s first financial inclusion index at 53.9

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The first reading of the Reserve Bank of India’s annual Financial Inclusion (FI) Index for the period ending March 2021 has come in at 53.9 against 43.4 for the period ending March 2017.

The index captures information on various aspects of financial inclusion in a single value ranging between 0 and 100, where 0 represents complete financial exclusion and 100 indicates full financial inclusion.

The FI Index comprises three broad parameters (weights indicated in brackets) – Access (35 per cent), Usage (45 per cent), and Quality (20 per cent), with each of these consisting of various dimensions computed based on a number of indicators.

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The Index, which has been has been constructed without any ‘base year’ and as such reflects cumulative efforts of all stakeholders over the years towards financial inclusion, is responsive to ease of access, availability and usage of services, and quality of services, comprising all 97 indicators, the RBI said in a statement.

A unique feature of the Index is the Quality parameter, which captures the quality aspect of financial inclusion as reflected by financial literacy, consumer protection, and inequalities and deficiencies in services, it added.

The FI Index, which will be published annually in July every year, has been conceptualised as a comprehensive index incorporating details of banking, investments, insurance, postal as well as the pension sector in consultation with government and respective sectoral regulators.

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ATM usage to cost more

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The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has accepted the long-standing demand of banks and White Label ATM operators (WLAO) for a hike in interchange fee in view of increasing cost of ATM deployment and maintenance.

This could encourage deployment of ATMs, which has hit the slow lane in the last one year amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

The interchange fee (which is recovered by banks owning ATMs from card issuing banks for providing) has been upped from ₹15 to ₹17 per financial transaction and from ₹5 to ₹6 per non-financial transaction in all centres. The new fee will be effective from August 1.

Customer charges

Simultaneously, to compensate Banks for the higher interchange fee and given the general escalation in costs, they have been allowed to increase the customer charges for transactions beyond the stipulated free monthly ATM transactions to ₹21 per transaction from ₹20. This increase will be effective from January 1, 2022.

Customers are eligible for five free transactions (inclusive of financial and non-financial transactions) every month from their own bank ATMs. In other bank ATMs they are allowed three transactions in metro centres and five in non-metro centres.

RBI, in a circular, said applicable taxes, if any, will be additionally payable on the interchange fee and customer charges. The central bank added that its instructions also apply, mutatis mutandis (with the necessary changes having been made), to transactions done at Cash Recycler Machines (other than for cash deposit transactions).

ATM additions declined to 2,815 in FY21 against 8,564 in the previous year. The number of ATMs across the country is 2.13 lakh (2.10 lakh.)

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