State Bank of India on 13 March reduced charges levied on savings bank account customers for not maintaining the average monthly balance by up to 75 percent.
The country’s largest lender will charge a maximum of Rs 15 per month from urban customers, down from Rs 50 earlier, according to its press release. For semi-urban and rural customers, the maximum penalty has been lowered to Rs 12 and Rs 10 respectively, down from up to Rs 40 a month earlier. Goods and services tax charges will be applicable, the release added.
New Charges Will be Applicable From 1 April
We have reduced these charges taking into account the feedback and sentiments of our customers. The move will benefit 25 crore customers.PK Gupta, managing director of retail and digital banking, SBI
The bank has 41 crore savings bank accounts, out of which 16 crore accounts are basic savings deposit bank accounts and those opened under Jan Dhan Yojana. These 16 crore accounts, along with accounts belonging to pensioners, minors and social security benefit holders, are exempted from the average minimum balance penalty. In addition to these categories, accounts of students of up to 21 years of age are also exempted, the release added.
Typically, customers in the basic savings deposit bank accounts category have all the banking services available to them like any other customer, except that they can only make four withdrawals in a month.
SBI collected Rs 1,771 crore between April-November 2017, in the form of penalties from customers who could not maintain monthly average balance, according to a report on Indian Express, dated 2 January.
This story was first published on BloombergQuint
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