State Bank of India (SBI) on Wednesday justified its move saying the bank needs to impose some charges as a penalty to negotiate the “burden” of managing a large number of Jan Dhan accounts. Except for SBI, all other banks have minimum balance requirement for an account holder. SBI has the lowest minimum balance requirement. As per the new list of revised charges of State Bank, failure to maintain monthly average balance in accounts will attract some penalty charges of up to Rs 100. And service tax will also be applicable with Rs 100. It also clarified that the penalty would not apply to Jan-Dhan accounts. The charges and Monthly Average Balance (MAB) varies according to the location of the bank and it is minimum in rural areas. There will be a charge of Rs 100 plus service tax in metropolitan areas if the balance falls below seventy-five percent of the monthly average balance. Currently, MAB for State Bank is Rs 5000 rupees.
The State Bank of India (SBI) also revised the charges on other banking services. The new charges for both the cases will be applicable from 1st April 2017. Under the revised charges, there will be a charge of Rs 20 for cash withdrawal from ATMs, if the number of transactions exceeds 3 from the ATMs of other banks in a month and Rs 10, if it exceeds 5 withdrawals from SBI ATMs. However, no charge will be applicable on withdrawals from its own ATMs if the balance exceeds Rs 25,000. And if the balance exceeds Rs 1 lakh rupees, then no charge will be applicable for other bank’s ATMs also.
According to SBI chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya, “Currently, we have a lot of burden i.e. eleven crore financial inclusion or Jan-Dhan accounts. To bear such a large number of Jan Dhan accounts, we need sufficient money. That’s why we have introduced some penalty charges. We have taken this step after considering and analyzing a lot of parameters”. Bhattacharya also added that there is some cost involved in printing, transportation, counting, providing security and installing ATMs, it is very reasonable to charge some penalty.
“We don’t think a household person has a requirement to withdraw cash through ATMs for more than four times. This is required for businessman and we want them to use mobile and internet banking service.” She said.
While addressing the convention, Bhattacharya said that State Bank of India (SBI) alone has contributed more than Rs 10 thousand crores in giving loans to MSME sectors. And they wish to give around Rs 16 thousand crores of Mudra loans by the end of this 2016- 2017 financial year. At present, nearly fifty-five percent of the bank’s balance sheets comprises of retail segments. And of course Jan-Dhan account also. To manage all those factors, it is very reasonable to impose some charges beyond a particular limit.
