Indore: User charges on extra ATM withdrawals above the monthly cap of five free transactions fetched handsome gains for the State Bank of India (SBI) in 2015-16, reply to an RTI query has revealed.

SBI earned Rs 310.44 crore revenue from automated teller machine (ATM) transactions in 2015-16, which was 47.5 per cent higher than the previous year, as per an RTI reply given to Chandrashekhar Gaud, an activist based in Neemuch in Madhya Pradesh.

Extra withdrawals from ATMs resulted in Rs 210.47 crore revenue for the bank in 2014-15, Gaud said, quoting from the reply.

The Reserve Bank had in November 2014 allowed banks to cap free ATM usages at five a month and charge for extra usages. The decision came after banks were reporting heavy losses from ATM business with SBI alone reporting hundreds of crores in losses.

The bank charges Rs 20 per transaction from its customers after they cross the limit of five free monthly withdrawals, Gaud said and demanded that SBI should enhance the free transactions cap.

PTI