SBI revises service charges to shore up income

State Bank of India has revised a few charges for services and introduced a few others with a view to ‘shoring up its depleted miscellaneous income.’

The revised charges and the new levies came into effect from November 1, a communication addressed to branches said. A proposal for the new and revised charges was put up before the Executive Committee to the Central Board at its meeting held on September 19 and the same was duly approved.

The communication further said that a notice was put on the bank website on September 27 for public viewing of the revised charges applicable.

New charges Explaining the context, the communication said that a review of some service charges showed that these were very old and had not been revised for long.

This was despite the persisting inflationary trend and increasing cost of transactions having depleted the miscellaneous income of the bank.

New service charges include processing charges for pension loan; cash handling charges for personal segment customers; safekeeping charges for gold ornaments against which gold loans (under personal or agricultural segment) are sanctioned and subsequently liquidated but gold ornaments are kept lying with the bank.

The communication also recalled an RBI directive of August 8, 2014, on usage of ATMs-rationalisation of number of free transactions.

It permitted banks to charge (maximum ₹20 plus service charge per transaction) customers for any financial/non-financial transaction exceeding five per month on its own ATMs.

Five free transactions This was also applicable for transactions exceeding three per month on other bank ATMs in six metros of Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Hyderabad.

Only no-frill/basic savings bank deposit account holders are excluded from this levy. They will continue to enjoy five free transactions at other bank ATMs irrespective of the centre.

COMMENT NOW