SBI will penalise account holders for not maintaining minimum balance from today: 5 things you need to know

The country's largest lender has also revised charges on other services, including ATMs.

State Bank of India. (File Photo)

After a gap of five years, the State Bank of India will start levying penalties on non-maintenance of minimum balance in accounts of its account holders from Saturday. In addition to this, the country’s largest lender has revised charges on other services, including ATMs. The Reserve Bank of India has given its nod to banks to levy charges for breaching the minimum balance limit.

Here are the five things that you need to know:

1. As per the SBI’s announcement, inability to maintain a minimum average balance (MAB) in SBI accounts will invite a penalty of Rs 100 plus service tax if the balance falls below 75 per cent of MAB. If the drop is 50 per cent or less, then the penalty will be Rs 50 plus service tax. On the other hand, the penalty will range from Rs 20-50 plus service tax for rural areas.

2. The minimum balance should be Rs 5,000 if you are living in metro cities, while charges will be Rs 3,000, Rs 2,000 and Rs 1,000 if you are from urban, semi-urban and rural areas, respectively.

3. Among other revisions, the SBI will allow only three penalty-free deposits in savings bank accounts in a month. It will charge Rs 50 and service tax on each transaction beyond that.

4. If the number of transactions exceeds more than thrice from different bank’s ATM in a month, a charge of up to Rs 20 will be levied. Meanwhile, a penalty of Rs 10 will be imposed if cash withdrawal from SBI ATMs exceeds more than five times.

5. The bank will also levy Rs 15 as SMS alert charge for people who hold debit cards and maintain average quarterly balance of Rs 25,000 during a three-month period.