PSU banks waive excess ATM fees during September 28–30 strike
SBI, PNB, Bank of Baroda and other public-sector banks will waive ATM charges beyond free monthly limits during the three-day employee strike, cushioning customers as branch and cash-access services face disruption over the preceding weekend.
What happened
State Bank of India · Indian public-sector banks, including SBI, PNB and Bank of Baroda, will waive excess ATM withdrawal charges during a September 28-30
Key facts
- Three-day strike from September 28 to 30
- Five free ATM transactions monthly at own-bank ATMs
- Three free other-bank ATM transactions in six metro cities
- Five free other-bank ATM transactions in non-metro locations
- Up to Rs 23 per transaction plus GST after free limits
- ATM interchange fee of Rs 19 for financial transactions
- ATM interchange fee of Rs 7 for non-financial transactions
- Indefinite strike announced from October 26
Why this matters
Use the disruption to evaluate partnerships with resilient payment processors, cash-management providers and private-bank networks that can strengthen merchant continuity during bank outages.
What to watch
- Reports of ATM cash-outs, replenishment delays or long queues beginning over the preceding weekend.
- Bank or union updates indicating strike expansion, participation by cash-management staff, or delayed restoration of branch operations.
- UPI, card-switch, core-banking or cash-deposit service incident notices during the strike window.
- Daily store-level cash tender share, declined-payment rates, queue times and cash-over/short exceptions versus baseline.
- Announcements from private banks or ATM operators on withdrawal limits, availability or additional fee waivers.
- Increase cash-float and change availability at high-footfall stores, especially grocery, fuel, pharmacy, quick-service and transit-adjacent formats.
- Validate UPI, card-terminal and payment-gateway uptime; prepare store teams with an offline escalation and alternate-acquirer process.
- Monitor ATM availability around priority stores and coordinate armored-cash replenishment earlier than usual where cash tender is historically high.
- Brief cashiers to manage split tenders, exact-change requests and queue handling without discouraging digital payments.
- Review fraud, counterfeit-note and cash-shrink controls, as higher cash volumes can raise exception risk.