Udaipur, November 1, 2024 – Citizens across the country will see some new rules come into effect from November 1. These rules had been announced earlier this year. The changes from today are related to railway ticket bookings, UPI platform, money transfer regulations, mutual fund insider trading and credit card regulations.

Here are some things you need to watch out for:

Railway Ticket Advance Booking

The rules for advance booking of railway tickets have changed. You will now be able to book tickets only 60 days in advance from the date of travel instead of the previous limit of 120 days. Passengers with existing ticket bookings will not be affected by this adjustment. They can proceed with their travel plans as planned.

According to the Railway Ministry, this Advance Reservation Period (ARP) rule was revised because approximately 21% of reservations made for 61 to 120 days in advance were cancelled and 5% of passengers failed to show up for their trips. This new rule, says the Ministry, will benefit genuine passengers and also streamline ticket purchase process.

The ARP of 365 days for foreign tourists will be unaffected by this new rule.

UPI Lite Platform

UPI Lite Platform has two new rules that come into effect from November 1, 2024.

The UPI Lite platform will now allow users to hold up to Rs 5,000 in their wallets instead of the previous limit of Rs 2,000. Additionally, the transaction limit has increased from Rs 500 to Rs 1,000. Also, now an auto top-up feature, introduced by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) will automatically refill your UPI Lite balance when it falls below a certain threshold, eliminating the need for manual top-ups.

In a press release of August 27, 2024, NPCI had said, "With this new feature, the UPI Lite balance will automatically be reloaded by an amount chosen by the user, not exceeding UPI Lite balance limit, whenever the balance falls below a minimum limit set by them."

You must determine the reload amount, which cannot be more than the Rs 2,000 total wallet limit. The UPI Lite account can be topped up to five times in one day.

Domestic Money Transfers

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is implementing new regulations for domestic money transfers, effective November 1. This is to prevent fraud related to banking channels. KYC (Know Your Customer) rules will be stricter, requiring sender banks to maintain records of the name and address of the recipient. All transactions must also be validated using additional factor authentication.

The RBI, in a circular issued in July this year, had said: “There has been significant increase in the availability of banking outlets, developments in payment systems for funds transfers, and ease in fulfilling KYC requirements etc., since then; and now users have multiple digital options for funds transfer. A review was recently undertaken of various services facilitated in the current framework.”

Mutual Fund Insider Trading

New regulations regarding insider trading in Mutual Funds will come into effect on November 1, 2024. According to these rules, asset management companies (AMCs) must disclose transactions exceeding Rs 15 lakh made by Fund Managers’ nominees and their close relatives.

SBI Credit Card Rule

Effective November 1, SBI has revised the finance charges to 3.75% p.m. on all unsecured SBI Credit Card. However, this is not applicable to Shaurya and Defense.

With inputs from media source