Chinese customers can now make deposits and cash withdrawals at different banks, regardless of where they keep their accounts, thanks to a service launched by the central bank on Monday.

 

The new system for small payments is available at most banks, including state-owned commercial banks, joint-stock commercial banks and city commercial banks.

 

The service is now only available within the account holder's region of residence, but it will eventually operate nationwide. Both debit cards and account books will be covered by the service.

 

Previously, only medium-sized and small banks offered such services, and cross-bank deposits and withdrawals were only available from major banks for debit-card transactions via ATMs.

 

Most banks in Beijing, and those in some provinces including Shandong, Guangdong and Zhejiang, have been ready to offer such services, according to the central bank.

 

The full roll-out of the system will require further time, as some commercial banks are debugging their systems, according to one source.

 

The central bank said fees charged for such cross-bank services would be decided by the service providers.

 

Many commercial banks, including the big four state-owned banks, set the fees at a proportion of 1 percent of the amount involved. Some have fees ranging from 10 yuan to 100 yuan or even 200 yuan.

 

The new service could help cut long bank queues, which have been a recent focus of customer complaints.

 

However, many said that the new service, while more convenient, may not be very desirable because of the fees.

 

More than 90 percent of about 14,000 respondents to a survey conducted by China's major portal, Sina.com, said the fees charged by banks are too high. More than 70 percent urged abolition of such charges.

 

(Xinhua News Agency November 21, 2007)