Public sector lender Punjab National Bank has said it earned over ₹645 crore by levying ATM transaction charges on customers during the financial year 2021-22.
“Revenue earned by PNB from ATM transaction charges stood at ₹645.67 crore in the financial year 2021-22,” the bank said in response to an application seeking information under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.
Besides, the country's second-largest lender collected ₹239.09 crore in the form of penalty imposed on customers who failed to maintain a minimum balance or quarterly/monthly average balance in their bank accounts, according to the bank's response to Madhya Pradesh-based RTI applicant Chandrashekhar Gaur.
Levying charges on customers
In 2020-21, the bank had earned ₹170 crore by levying charges on customers for not maintaining a minimum balance in their accounts. The amount was collected from 85,18,953 accounts during FY22. To a query on the number of zero balance accounts with the bank, PNB (Punjab National Bank) said there were a total of 6,76,37,918 such accounts as of March 31, 2022.
Going by the trend for the last four financial years from 2018-19 to 2021-22, it was revealed that the zero balance accounts in PNB have gone up steadily over these years. As of March 31, 2019, there were 28,203,379 zero balance accounts at PNB, which increased to 3,05,83,184 by the end of March 2020 and further to 5,94,96,731 as of March 31, 2021.