The State Bank of India (SBI) on Wednesday decided to bring relief to its savings account holders by waiving off the requirement for maintaining minimum balance in saving accounts.
“The charges on maintaining average minimum balance are now waived off on all 44.51 crore SBI savings bank accounts,” the bank said in a statement.
Apart from waving off the minimum balance requirement, the SBI also decided to waive off SMS charges.
Currently, SBI saving accounts holders need to maintain an average monthly balance of Rs 3000, Rs 2000 and Rs 1000 in metro, semi-urban and rural areas respectively.
For non-maintenance of average monthly balance, the SBI used to impose a penalty of Rs 5 to Rs 15 plus taxes.
“Bank has also rationalised interest rate on SB Account to a flat 3 per cent p.a. for all buckets,” the statement further added.
Presently the interest rate on saving bank accounts is 3.25 per cent for deposits up to Rs 1 lakh in saving bank accounts, and 3 per cent for deposits above Rs 1 lakh.