Indian Railways has facilitated electronic payment towards the freight services availed for transportation of goods. The facility allows online debit to customer's account and credit to Railways account.

The process is simple:

• Account at any branch of PNB - Any Customer wishing to pay the Railway Freight direct debit of his account must have an account exclusively for this purpose with the bank. No other debits would be permitted in this account.
• Tripartite Agreement among BANK, Indian Railways and the Customer
  - Before a customer can opt for epayment of freight, a tripartite agreement (TPA) is to be signed among the Bank, Customer and the Railways whereby the Customer will give mandate to the bank to debit his account at the request of Railways for payment of freight. Once the agreement is executed between the Railways, Customer and PNB which would cover only freight charges payable by the consignor from the date of the TPA, Railways will give a Unique 3 digit Customer Numeric Code to the customer.
• Booking of goods for transportation
  - When the customer books the goods for transportation at the originating point and opts for e-payment of the freight, the goods clerk at the loading point will key in the customer code and other particulars. The information would pass through Railway Server to PNB's Internet Banking and after necessary authentication at bank's end account of the customer would be debited. A corresponding message would be sent bank.
• Release of goods at the loading point
  - When the payment confirmation is received by the goods clerk at the originating station, Railways will release the goods on "paid" basis.
• Electronic Payment system is a 24x7 facility.
  - Freight payments can be made any time and the request processed by Railways would be responded by the bank's server accordingly.
• In addition to the dedicated account, the customer would be required to open an irrevocable inland Letter of Credit / Bank Guarantee as a fall-back in case account is short of the required amount towards freight payment.