Banks mop up `5,000 crore in minimum balance fines

New Delhi, Aug. 5: As many as 21 public sector banks and three major private sector lenders collected a whopping `5,000 crore from customers for non-maintenance of minimum balance in their accounts in FY18, according to banking data.

State Bank of India, which suffered a staggering net loss of `6,547 crore during FY18, led the pack in penalising its customers for not maintaining minimum account balance.

SBI, which re-introduced the penalty on deposits going below monthly average balance basis from April 2017, collected nearly half the amount raised by the 24 banks put together (`4,989.55 crore).

But for the additional income of `2,433.87 crore under this head, SBI’s losses would have soared further.

After SBI, the largest amount of charges for not maintaining minimum balance during FY18 was collected by HDFC Bank. It charged its customers `590.84 crore, which is lower than `619.39 crore in FY17, the data revealed. Axis Bank collected `530.12 crore in the last fiscal while ICICI Bank charged `317.6 crore.

SBI was charging the penalty on failure to maintain monthly average balance requirement till 2012 and again reintroduced it from April 1, 2017.

Following the criticism, SBI reduced charges with effect from October 1, 2017.

According to the RBI norms, banks are permitted to levy sevice/miscellaneous charges.

Customers opening accounts under Basic Savings Bank Deposit (BSBD) scheme as well as Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojna are not required to maintain any minimum balance.