The Reserve Bank of India has directed the commercial banks to pay back the money that has not been dispensed through their ATMs but debited to the customer's account within 12 days.

The banking regulator has notified banks that if they fail to provide the money within the stipulated time period, it will impose penalties under the Payment and Settlement Systems Act 2007.

RBI was prompted to take such a move because of receiving increasing number of complainants from the banks customers regarding wrongly debit of account due to failed ATM transactions.

These customers had been complaining to their respective banks which are not active in their procedure of reimbursement. The banks were taking considerable time of as much as 50 days in some cases.

Noticing such a practice followed by the bank, RBI reviewed the measures taken by the banks in the verification and resolution of such complaints. The apex bank however did not find any justification for the delay in repayment and thereby asked the banks to pay back the customer's money within a maximum period of 12 days of the complaint made by the customer.

The regulator said that the delay from banks was posing a problem to the customers who found themselves out of funds without their fault. It also emphasized that such neglect on banks' part would also discourage customers from doing transactions through ATMs.