ICICI Banks Net initiative

Mumbai: ICICI Bank has launched its eCheques facility for enabling Internet-banking. This facility will enable online payments from an ICICI Bank account anywhere in the country to any bank in the cities of Mumbai, New Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Nagpur. The facility will soon be extended to the cities of Kanpur, Jaipur, Bhubaneshwar, Thiruvananthapuram, Chandigarh, Patna and Guwahati.

The eCheque facility will allow transfer of funds through the Reserve Bank of Indias (RBI) electronic funds transfer account. It involves a one-time registration of the beneficiary. Once the customer places an online request through the banks site for transfer of funds to the beneficiary, the funds are debited to the customers account. It is then transferred to the RBI. The national clearing cell of the RBI transfers the amount to the beneficiarys bank.

Says ICICI Bank executive director Chanda Kochar: "eCheque will transfer funds in three days compared to over 10 days required by courier services. We are not charging any fee for this facility for the first three months, after which it would be Re 1 per Rs 1,000 worth of transfer. This works out to 50 per cent of the demand draft charges. The limit for sending funds through eCheques is Rs 5 lakh per transfer. The banks 55 per cent transactions are through electronic channels."