State Bank of India (SBI) charges for non-maintenance of minimum balance unfair

According to financial ministry data, the SBI collected Rs 24.34 billion for the financial year 2017 in penalty on non-maintenance of minimum balance alone.

Finance News: The State Bank of India’s (SBI’s) charges for the non-maintenance of minimum balance were unreasonable, a report by a professor at the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay has said.

The SBI started charging fees for non-maintenance of minimum balance from April 2017, after a gap of five years, the monthly fees ranged between Rs 20 and Rs 100 till September 2017 and were later slashed in October last year. According to financial ministry data, the SBI collected Rs 24.34 billion for the financial year 2017 in penalty on non-maintenance of minimum balance alone.

SBI Minimum Balance Penalty

Later on, the bank slashed these charges by nearly 80 per cent in April 2018, and the charges currently range from Rs 5-15.

The public sector lender had earlier said that only 60 per cent of its accounts were subject to these charges. It also said that people should convert their accounts in Basic Savings and Basic Deposit Accounts to avoid penalty for non-maintenance of balance.

“For April 2017, the SBI recovered Rs 2.35 billion as penalty from only 38.9 million of the 255 million savings bank accounts in question for not maintaining minimum monthly average...continue balance

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News Source: BS

It's official! PM Narendra Modi to launch India Post Payments Bank on August 21

IPPB would become one of the largest banking networks in India. India Post has 154,000 post offices, of which 139,000 are in rural areas.

Latest News: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) on August 21. The event will take place at the capital's Talkatora stadium.

The bank is running pilot services in Raipur and Ranchi. It will tie up with other banks and financial companies to offer loans, mutual funds and insurance policies, said sources. The Department of Posts was one of the 11 entities to get the in-principle nod from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in 2015 for setting up a payments bank. Many private firms such as Airtel, Fino, Paytm, etc, have launched these services. But IPPB missed the September 2017 deadline to open 650 branches because it failed to get a system integrator (SI) on board.

India Post Payments Bank

IPPB would become one of the largest banking networks in India. India Post has 154,000 post offices, of which 139,000 are in rural areas. The government is planning to utilise 650 branches to serve as controlling offices for servicing and monitoring post offices. These branches will be linked to IPPB by the end of this year.

An account holder can deposit up to Rs 100,000, withdraw cash, and make payments just like a savings bank account in any other commercial bank. However, to overcome the limitation of Rs 100,000, the bank has received permission to link around 170 million post office saving banks (POSB) account. Whenever a deposit in IPPB account exceeds Rs 100,000, it can be transferred to POSB. There are 370 million different types of accounts at post offices, which will be linked to IPPB gradually, according to sources.

The IPPB will also provide doorstep banking services. These will be chargeable. There are around 250,000 dak sevaks and another 50,000 postmen available in the network. Initially, 11,000 postmen will provide these services and…continue reading

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News Source : BS