SBI lowers minimum balance requirement to ₹3K, cuts penalties

NEWDELHI: The country’s largest lender, State Bank of India, on Monday lowered the minimum averagemonthlybalance (MAB) requirement in a savings account to ₹3,000 from ₹5,000, and also revised downwards penalties for not maintaining such a balance. The revised MAB requirement and charges will becomeapplicablefromOctober, the bank said in a statement.

SBI also decided to exempt pensioners, beneficiaries of the government’s social benefit schemes and minors from the requirement of minimum balance in savings account.

In April, the bank had re-introduced MAB and charges for non-maintenance of balance after a gap of five years. In metropolitan areas, the minimum balance requirement was ₹5,000. For urban and semi-urban branches, it was fixed at ₹3,000 and ₹2,000, respectively, and for rural branches it was ₹1,000.

The lender also revised downwards the penalty for non-maintenanceof MAB.“Fornon-maintenance of MAB, the charges have also been revised downwards ranging from 20-50% across all population groups and categories,” the bank said.T

The charges at semi-urban and rural centres now range from ₹20 to ₹40, and at urban and metro centres from ₹30 to ₹50. Earlier, in the metros, the bank was charging ₹100 plus GST in case the balance was below 75% of the MAB of ₹5,000. If the shortfall was 50% or less, the penalty charge was ₹50 plus GST.

Any shortfall in maintaining minimum average balance in rural areas was attracting a penalty in the range of ₹20 to ₹50 plus GST.

In the statement issued on Monday, the bank said that basic savings bank deposit and PM’s Jan-Dhan accounts were not required to maintain the minimum balance. Out of its total 42 crore savings accounts, 13 crore belong to this category.