new delhi to promote cashless transactions the finance ministry has asked public sector banks to take steps to reduce the fee to zero for electronic transfer of funds up to rs one lakh currently most banks charge a maximum fee of rs 5 per transfer of funds up to rs 1 lakh from one account to another through national electronic funds transfer neft system transfer of funds up to rs 10000 through neft system attract a maximum charge of rs 250 per transaction in a recent communication to the stateowned banks the ministry had asked them to take action to reduce the neft charges to zero for value up to rs 1 lakh however some banks are yet to intimate the ministry about the action taken by them to reduce the charges sources said rbi has however retained maximum charges of rs 15 per transaction for electronic transfer of funds beyond rs 1 lakh to less than rs 2 lakh the government has been asking banks to encourage transactions through epayment channels so as to reduce the number of transactions through cheques and other expensive modes of transactions the public sector banks have also been asked to identify top 20 per cent branches in respect of business volumes to bring down the number of cheque based transactions by at least onefifth in the current financial year the banks have also been asked to ensure that all payments and disbursements by them except sundry payments are made only electronically the rbi had recently said that it is desirable that the benefits accruing on account of increasing volume of transactions are passed on to the customers so as to incentivise greater use of the electronic payment system