Hyderabad: Come January 1, its not only a new calendar year for all of us, there are some important changes on the financial front too. ETV Bharat brings you the five most important things that one must be aware of and adhered to. They are as given below.
Aadhaar - PAN Linkage
The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) on 30 December 2019, has made it mandatory and extended the date by March 2020 to link your Permanent Account Number (PAN) with Aadhaar.
While Aadhaar is issued by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to a resident of India, PAN is a 10-digit alphanumeric number allotted by the I-T Department to a person, firm or entity.
No Merchant Discount Rate (MDR)
In a bid to promote digital payments, no MDR charges will be applicable from January 1, 2020 on transactions through home grown RuPay and UPI platforms.
Department of Revenue (DoR) will soon notify RuPay and UPI as the prescribed mode of payment for digital transactions without any Merchant Discount Rate (MDR).
MDR is the cost paid by a merchant to a bank for accepting payment from their customers via digital means. The merchant discount rate is expressed in percentage of the transaction amount.
SBI bans Magnetic Cards
Country’s leading bank State Bank of India (SBI) will deactivate all magnetic strip cards by December 31, 2019. The bank has replaced all magnetic stripe cards of its customers with EMV chip and PIN based cards, as per RBI guidelines.
OTP must for ATM withdrawals
State Bank of India (SBI) will launch an one-time password (OTP)-based ATM cash withdrawal facility from January 1, 2020, as an overnight service (8 p.m.-8 a.m.); which means while withdrawing cash, the customer will receive an OTP on the mobile number registered with the bank.
The OTP-based withdrawal is applicable only to withdrawals from SBI ATMs.
No NEFT Charges
Banks will no longer be charging for online transactions in the National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) system from 1 January 2020. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has now mandated banks to do this to promote digital payments.
NEFT is a nation-wide payment system facilitating one-to-one funds transfer. Under this scheme, individuals, firms and corporates can electronically transfer funds from any bank branch to any individual, firm or corporate having an account with any other bank branch in the country participating in the scheme.
