Telecoms waive SMS charges for Banking services

New Delhi: To help in cashless transactions due to demonetisation, telecom operators will not charge for short code messages (SMS) used for banking services till December 31. This move will help people with feature phones to access electronic banking facility without incurring any additional cost. This SMS based banking services is used to avail banking services including checking balance, withdrawals, deposits and peer-to-peer-transfer.

“At present, a charge is being levied by telecom operators for mobile banking, which is commonly known as USSD charge,” telecom minister Manoj Sinha said in a tweet.
To facilitate use of electronic banking facility and reducing difficulty for the common man, telecom operators have decided to waive the charges for mobile banking services till December 31, 2016, he added.  “This move will help people with feature phones to access electronic banking facility without incurring any additional cost till December 31, 2016,” he said.

“To support customers during the ongoing demonetisation exercise, Bharti Airtel has waived off transaction charges for all USSD based mobile banking transactions over its network till December 31, 2016. We would encourage customers to leverage this benefit  for their convenience,” said Bharti Airtel. Meanwhile in separate notification Trai slashed short code text message charges to 50 paise from Rs 1.50.