State Bank of India waives minimum balance criteria for saving bank account

State Bank Of India | Bank - Public | BFSI | BSE: 500112 | NSE: SBIN

04 Jul 2012 Evaluate

State Bank of India (SBI), the country’s largest bank, has waived off the minimum balance criteria for saving bank account. Henceforth, the bank will not levy any charge for breaching minimum balance criteria. The bank has taken this step in order to increase its customer base. This facility is available not only for new customers but also for existing customers.

Initially, the bank customers had to maintain a minimum balance of Rs 1,000 in his or her savings account with cheque book facility. Upon failing to meet the minimum balance criteria the customers had to pay the penalty.

Besides, there are certain savings account products of the bank where the minimum monthly balance is as low as Rs 50 and depending on features and facility, the minimum average monthly balance varies.

Apart from improving customer base this move will also help the bank to generate low cost deposits since the savings bank account earns interest rate of just 4%. The bank had 15.39 crore saving banks accounts, as of March 2012. It opened 2.19 crore such accounts during 2011-12.