From minimum balance to ATM withdrawal charges, what you should know about SBI, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank savings accounts

Not maintaining minimum balance in your bank account and paying some charges on it on a regular basis may be a small thing for you, but that is a big business for most of India’s leading banks now. The State Bank of India, for instance, has collected a whopping Rs 1,771 crore during April to November 2017 as charges from below minimum balance accounts. These charges were slapped on customers who failed to maintain the minimum monthly average balance (MAB) in their accounts, according to reports. The amount is said to be more than the bank’s July-September quarter net profit of Rs 1,581.55 crore and nearly half of the Rs 3,586 crore it earned as net profit during April to September last year.

It is interesting to note that after a gap of 5 years SBI had decided to resume the charge on savings account holders for failing to maintain the monthly average balance in their accounts. The charges became effective from April 1, 2017. The bank had done away with the minimum balance criteria for savings bank accounts a few years back in a bid to lure new customers.

However, after resuming the charges, SBI later decided to revise the service charges for maintaining MAB as well as the charges for non-maintenance of MAB. The bank also decided to treat the metro and urban centres in the same category and the requirement of MAB in metro centres stood reduced to Rs 3,000 from Rs 5,000 earlier. For non-maintenance of MAB, the charges were revised downward ranging from 20% to 50% across all population groups and categories. The revised MAB requirement and charges became applicable from the month of October 2017.

Like SBI, lots of other banks have also collected hefty sums as charges for non-maintenance of MAB. PNB, for instance, has collected Rs 97.34 crore, while Central Bank of India has collected Rs 68.67 crore as charges for non non-maintenance of minimum account balance.

However, charges for non non-maintenance of minimum account balance are not the only charge which is levied by banks. They, in fact, levy many other charges on various banking transactions, such as ATM withdrawal charge, cash withdrawal charge, among others, which many people are even not aware of. Here we are taking a look at some of these charges levied by some of India’s leading banks:

(Source: Bankbazaar.com)

Thus, if you want to avoid these charges, then it is in your own interest to be aware of them and do the banking transactions accordingly.