After spending what seemed like an eternity in airplanes, and getting a taste of the Delhi fog, I am finally home for my vacation, and having a great time here.
I thought I’d write about a couple of things in a quick post, as I found a free hour or so today.
First the fog: I can’t describe how much fog there was last week. You had to see it to believe it. Our flight managed to land somehow, but the pilots weren’t able to see very much so they didn’t taxi the airport to get to the gates. Instead, buses came to the plane and whisked away the passengers, and that took forever. I am just glad we were able to land and that didn’t get delayed, well not by much anyway.
Next; some fun I am having with my debit card: This time I have to do a fair bit of shopping, and since all my Indian credit cards have expired, I am heavily dependent on my debit card.
It has become harder to use debit cards because of some new RBI regulations to prevent fraud, and I am facing a bit of trouble in using my debit card for slightly bigger amounts.
I thought I’d do a post on what I have learned over the past few days.
1. Maximum limit of Rs.25,000 per day: I was told that there is a maximum limit of Rs25,000 per day on transactions on your debit card. You can’t make a transaction of more than Rs.25,000 for a day on a debit card. I know this is only partially true because my ICICI debit card was only allowed Rs. 25,000 for a transaction, whereas my uncle used his SBI debit card, and the transaction went through for Rs. 50,000. So, there is definitely a limit, and for a lot of people it is going to be Rs.25000, I am just not sure whether it is Rs.25,000 for everyone.
2. Maximum withdrawal limit of Rs.10,000 per swipe on the ATM: There seems to be some rule that says you can’t withdraw more than Rs.10,000 by swiping your card once at the ATM. The maximum limit is Rs.25,000 in a day, and if you want to withdraw that much, — you have to make three transactions at the ATM. Again, at least a couple of friends told me that the limit is Rs.15,000, but I saw Rs. 10,000 when I went to my ICICI bank ATM.
Now, the fun part is that you can transact thrice and withdraw 25k, but they won’t let you do that at one go.  There must be some good in this, but I can’t think how this helps anyone right now.
3. The two limits above don’t come in each other’s way: You can withdraw 25,000 from the ATM and make a transaction worth that much in the same day. It seems that you can first withdraw 25k, and then go to the store and swipe for another 25k. That works just fine.
If you are planning to buy stuff worth more than Rs. 25,000 with your debit card, then you might face some of these troubles too. The best way to overcome this is to use a credit card on which the only limit is your own spending limit.
Since I don’t have that luxury right now, I am forced to withdraw cash and use the debit card, use a combination of debit and credit cards for the bigger purchases, and in one instance, I was able to pay by check also.
I don’t have any other ideas to deal with this situation, and welcome your suggestions on this. These rules caught a lot of my family by surprise too so I thought that even a post that details the issues without the solutions might be of assistance to a few.
