KARACHI: The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has allowed banks to charge fees on transfer of money above Rs25,000.

The SBP has directed banks to provide free of cost digital fund transfer services to individual customers up to, at least, a minimum aggregate sending limit of Rs25,000 per month per account.

However, the central bank said, banks may choose to set this aggregate limit at a higher amount as well. “This would allow individual customers to make as many free fund transfer transactions remaining within their aggregate monthly limit of free transfers,” it added.

For transactions above the aggregate limit of Rs25,000 per account in a month, banks may charge individual customers, a transaction fee of no more than 0.1% of the transaction amount or Rs200, whichever is lower.

Nevertheless, the new instructions encourage banks to provide free of cost digital fund transfer services to their customers to promote adoption of digital payments in the country.

SBP has also advised banks that all digital fund transfer transactions between different accounts within the same bank (intra-bank fund transfers) shall remain free. Further, incoming interbank fund transfer transactions shall also remain free.

Banks have further been directed to ensure proper disclosure of charged and free IBFT amounts along with applicable fees to their customers by sending regular notifications through SMS, apps and email. After every digital transaction, banks are required to send free of charge SMS to their customers on their registered mobile numbers intimating them about the transaction amount and the charges being recovered.

In order to provide seamless digital banking services to the public, SBP has further advised banks to remove any limits on the number of fund transfer transactions on their customer accounts/wallets unless there are genuine concerns related to AML/CFT or frauds.