SBI waives ATM charges during September 28–30 bank strike; digital payments stay live
State Bank of India will waive ATM transaction charges at any bank’s ATMs during the proposed nationwide bank strike from September 28–30, 2026. UPI, IMPS, NEFT, RTGS and digital banking services are expected to remain available, while SBI branches will operate on September 27.
What happened
State Bank of India (SBI) · SBI will waive ATM transaction charges across any bank’s ATMs from September 28-30 during a proposed nationwide bank strike. UPI,
Key facts
- September 28-30, 2026
- three days
- September 27, 2026
- 24x7
Why this matters
Payments and fintech teams should view the disruption as an opportunity to deepen bank, ATM-network and merchant partnerships that combine emergency cash access with frictionless digital-payment adoption.
What to watch
- Final confirmation, scope and participation level of the September 28–30 strike
- SBI and other banks' ATM cash-replenishment plans and transaction-limit policies
- UPI transaction volumes, success rates and outage reports during the disruption
- Cross-bank ATM withdrawal volumes and reports of cash-outs in high-demand areas
- Whether competing banks match fee waivers or launch digital-payment incentives
- Merchant reports of cash versus digital tender mix before and during the strike
- Retailers should confirm UPI, card-acquiring and offline-payment fallback capacity, especially for stores near bank branches and cash-dependent catchments.
- ATM operators and banks should pre-position cash and monitor cross-network withdrawal spikes by location.
- Banks may use strike-period digital traffic to promote mobile-banking activation, UPI AutoPay, card tokenization and digital service journeys.
- Large merchants may reduce cash-handling exposure by encouraging QR and contactless payments while maintaining change-float contingencies.