The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Wednesday allowed banks to charge a minimal fee on high-value transactions of Interbank Fund Transfer (IBFT). In a statement, the central bank said that new instructions allow banks and other service providers to charge a minimal fee on high-value transactions while protecting and encouraging the low-income segments of population to continue using digital transactions free of cost. The SBP directed banks to provide free of cost digital fund transfer services to individual customers up to, at least, a minimum aggregate sending limit of Rs25,000 per month per account/wallet. However, banks may choose to set this aggregate limit at a higher amount as well. This would allow individual customers to make as many free fund transfer transactions remaining within their aggregate monthly limit of free transfers. For transactions above the aggregate limit of Rs25,000 per account in a month, banks may charge individual customers a transaction fee of no more than 0.1% of the transaction amount or Rs200, whichever is lower. This will enable service providers to recover part of costs they incur on providing inter-bank fund transfer service and build sustainable and innovative business models. Nevertheless, the new instructions encourage banks to provide free of cost digital fund transfer services to their customers to promote adoption of digital payments in the country. The SBP has also advised banks that all digital fund transfer transactions between different accounts within the same bank (intra-bank fund transfers) shall remain free. Further, incoming interbank fund transfer transactions shall also remain free. SBP has further directed banks to ensure proper disclosure of charged and free IBFT amounts along with applicable fees to their customers by sending regular notifications through SMS, apps and email. After every digital transaction, banks are required to send free of charge SMS to their customers on their registered mobile numbers intimating them about the transaction amount and the charges being recovered.