The discussion paper on Disincentivisation of cheques issued by RBI envisages charging bank customer for every cheque book issued by the Bank, every cheque issued by the customer and every cheque deposited by the customer for clearing. This means that each cheque will be charged at least 3 times. The number of cheque leaves issued will be charged around Rs 5 per cheque. The charges for issue of cheques could be around Rs 25 per cheque. Charges for collection could be at least another Rs 25/- per cheque or it could be higher.
This means that each cheque could earn a revenue of around Rs 50 to Rs 60 to the banking system.
Today it is estimated that around 3 crore cheques are presented in clearing each month in different clearing houses. Suppose we consider this as the volume of cheques in the system, this means that around Rs 165 crores will be collected as additional revenue each month by the Banking system on account of the proposed regulation. The annual robbing would therefore be around Rs 1980/-crores or nearly Rs 2000 crores !
To this we need to add the free float interest that Banks enjoy on the balances of the customers on which they donot pay interest and the usurious charges they levy on various services and it will be clear how RBI is letting the Bankers loot the Indian public.
If RBI says that this Rs 2000 crores can be avoided if all customers switch to E Banking then we need to also factor in Rs 8000 crores which is being annually robbed out of Indian bank customers by Cyber Criminals which is also set to raise at least by 100%. Additionally customers have to pay to the banks charges for lost debit cards, resetting of passwords etc which will be direct additional revenue for the Banks.
Thus the current move of RBI is set to rob Indian Bank customers about Rs 10000 crores to Rs 16000 crores per annum because of the direct charges on cheques and the indirect loss due to cyber crimes arising out of insecure E Banking systems supported by RBI.
I therefore urge the wise men in RBI at the top to completely reject the suggestions of the Payment and Settlement Department for disincentivisation of cheques and bring relief to the Bank customers.
Naavi
