Important Regulatory guidelines on International usage of Debit Cards

Individual customers performing international transactions are governed by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) vide Master Direction on Liberalized Remittance Scheme (LRS) RBI/FED/2017 18/3 FED Master Direction No.7/2015-16 dtd 01-01-2016 updated time to time.

Liberalized Remittance Scheme (LRS) is a scheme of RBI which allows a resident individual to freely remit out of India up to USD 2,50,000 per financial year (April-March) for any permissible current or capital account transaction or a combination of both. All international transactions carried out through Debit Cards shall qualify as transactions under the provisions of LRS.
As per LRS guidelines, customers are allowed to perform transactions up to USD 2,50,000 (limit at Income Tax PAN level checked across all payment instruments and issued by Banks and Authorized Dealers) during a financial year. If the customer breaches this limit, then it would be classified as contravention of FEMA Guidelines and penalties would be applicable to the customer. Hence, all customers are requested adhere to the limit of LRS. The international usage access of the Debit Card may get blocked if the limit breaches USD 2,50,000.