ECS (Electronic Clearing Services)
What is Electronic Clearing Service(Debit Clearing & Credit
Clearing)?
The Reserve Bank of India has introduced the Electronic Clearing Service (Debit) Scheme
to provide faster method of effecting periodic and repetitive payment by direct debit to
customers accounts (duly authorised) thereby minimizing paper transactions and increasing
customers satisfaction and Electronic Clearing Service (Credit) Scheme to provide
institutions having to make large number of payments (such as Interest/Dividends) can
directly deposit the amount into the bank accounts of the share-holders/ depositors/
investors without having to issue paper instruments involving printing of warrants (in
costly MICR formats) despatching them by post (most often by Regd. Post).
Electronic Clearing Service (Debit) envisages "a large number of debits and one
credit in the case of collection of electricity bills, telephone bills, loan installments,
insurance premiums etc." and Electronic Clearing Service (Credit) envisages " a
large number of credits and one debit in the case of payment of Interest/Dividends to
customers by institutions.
At how many centres ECS Service is available?
Presently this Service is made available by:
- RBI at 15 centres viz. Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Chennai, Guwahati,
Hyderabad, Jaipur, Kolkata, Kanpur, Mumbai, Nagpur, New Delhi, Patna and
Thiruvananthapuram.
- SBI at 30 centres viz. Agra, Allahabad, Amritsar, Baroda, Bhopal, Cochi, Coimbatore,
Dehradun, Durgapur, Faridabad, Gaziabad, Hubli, Jamshedpur, Kolhapur, Lucknow, Ludhiana,
Madurai, Managalore, Nasik, Panaji, Pune, Rajkot, Shimla, Siliguri, Surat, Trichi,
Trichur, Vijaywada, Vishakhapatnam, and Varanasi.
- State Bank of Indore at Indore.
What are the benefits under ECS (Debit) & ECS (Credit) ?
- Faster collection of bills by the Companies and better Cash management by them.
- Eliminates the need to go to the collection centres/banks by the customers and no need
to stand in long 'Q's for payment.
- Loss of instruments in transit or fraudulent encashment thereof totally eliminated.
4.Payment on due date.
- effortless receipt.
Automatic debiting/crediting to the accounts once the mandates are given by the customers
to that effect cuts down the procedural delay.
Limit: There would be no per transaction limit for ECS, EFT
transactions with effect from November, 01, 2004.
Service Charge: To encourage electronic mode of payment which is fast
and efficient, Service Charge for ECS for beneficiary is free of cost and for user is
negotiable.
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