These rules are changing from January in banking, automobile and personal finance: Check out

Many rules related to banking, automobile and personal finance are changing from January 1. Before the new rules get implemented, you must know in advance what is changing and get prepared.

Here is the list of new rules to be rolled out:

1. Four-wheelers should have compulsory FasTags: From January 1, 2021, all four-wheelers should have FasTags, the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways said in a notification issued. The Central Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989 were amended for this. FASTag will be mandatory for four-wheelers or M&N category of vehicles that were sold before December 1, 2017.


2. 'Positive Pay' system for cheques: Positive pay system for cheques to be introduced by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) from January 1, 2021. Key details may be needed for payments beyond Rs 50,000 under the new rule re-confirmation. Information, such as the cheque number, cheque date, payee name, account number, amount, and other details are to be presented by the issuer of the cheque.


3. Transaction limit of contactless card increased: Limits for contactless card payments increased from Rs 2,000 to Rs 5,000 by the RBI, and it will be effective from January 1, 2021.


4. Quarterly Goods and Services Tax (GST) return filing facility: From January 1, 2021, about 9.4 million small businesses are set to come under a simpler, quarterly Goods and Services Tax (GST) return filing facility. A finance ministry official told Mint, "These firms with sales upto Rs 5 crore, will need to file only four returns showing summary of all transactions in the quarter in the new regime instead of 12 now filed--one every month."


5. Dial '0' before making landline to mobile calls: Effective from January 15, 2021, it is mandatory to prefix 0 for all calls made from fixed lines to mobiles. To implement this new system, the telecom department has been asking telecom companies to make necessary arrangements by January 1.


6. On selected phones, WhatsApp will not be available: WhatsApp is likely to stop working on select iPhone and Android smartphones starting 2021. The Facebook-owned messaging app could withdraw support for smartphones running on older versions of iOS, Android, Kai OS, etc.Reports suggest that starting January 1, 2021, WhatsApp will stop offering support on devices that are not running on iOS 9 or Android 4.0.3 or newer. This means that, if your iPhone or Android smartphone is not running on the mentioned software, WhatsApp may stop working on your device.The FAQ page states that smartphones need to be running on Android version 4.0.3 and iOS 9 and newer to be able to use WhatsApp.


7. Prices of car hiked: Maruti Suzuki will raise prices of its models starting from January. The price increase will vary for different models. MG Motor will be raising the prices of its offerings in India. The company has claimed that they will be increasing the cost by up to three percent in order to counter the impact of higher input cost. Renault India will be increasing the prices of all its cars in India. The company confirmed that car prices would be increased by up to Rs 28,000 from January.


8. Price hike of two-wheelers: To offset the impact of rising input costs, Hero MotoCorp will increase the prices of its vehicles by up to Rs 1,500 from January 1, 2021 to offset the impact of rising input costs.