On 25 October 2012, DD Maheshwari, Under Secretary in the Department of Financial Services sent out a fatwa marked "most immediate" to all chief executives of public sector banks (PSBs). The burden of this two-paragraph diktat was that "to discourage the use of physical/cash mode of transactions, all public sector banks are requested to consider charging a processing fee from the customer paying
credit card dues either in cash or through cheque". HDFC Bank has recently increased such charges from Rs50 to Rs100 per transaction and has sent a communication to its customers in compliance with the regulatory requirement of giving a month's notice.
