The Reserve Bank of India has directed banks to charge customers for transaction SMS alerts on the basis of usage, instead of imposing a fixed fee. The RBI in a notification issued to all banks said that considering the technology available with banks and the telecom service providers, it should be possible for banks to charge customers based on actual usage of SMS alerts.The notification said, this has been done to ensure reasonableness and equity in the charges levied by banks for sending SMS alerts to customers. In its second quarter review of monetory policy 2013-14, the RBI had advised banks to charge for sms alerts on usage basis.In March 2011, the Reserve Bank had set guidelines for banks to send online alerts to customers for all types of transactions, irrespective of the amount.