Banking Related General Awareness-Cheque payments made costlier from April 1, 2011

Cheque payments get costlier from 1 April
Making payments through cheques could become costly
with the RBI allowing banks to levy higher service charges
for their clearing, especially of high value and outstation
cheques. Banks are now free to fix service charges from
April 1, 2011, on speed clearing of cheques of value above
Rs.`1 lakh. Presently, RBI does not allow banks to charge
more than Rs.150 per cheque for speed clearing of cheques
worth over Rs.1 lakh. Speed clearing of cheques with value
up to Rs.1 lakh would remain exempt of any service charges.
Besides, RBI has also allowed banks to decide on the
service charge on outstation cheques of over Rs.1 lakh, as
against a maximum limit of Rs.`150 per cheque allowed
currently. However, RBI has decided to lower the service
charge for outstation cheques up to Rs.`5,000 by allowing a
levy of Rs.`25, as against Rs.50.


source:http://www.iibf.org.in/documents/IIBF-Vision-May-2011.pdf