SBI revises service charges for Monthly Average Balance; six categories of accounts exempted

State Bank of India on Monday revised requirements for maintaining and service charge for non-maintenance of monthly average balance (MAB). 

The bank has slashed the charges by 20-50% across all population groups and categories. 

According to the official release the bank has decided that the charges at semi-urban and rural centres range from Rs 20 to Rs 40 and at urban and metro centres from Rs 30 to Rs 50. 

The revised MAB requirement and charges will become applicable from the month of October 2017.

It has also decided to treat the metro and urban centres in the same category and the requirement of MAB in metro centres stands reduced to Rs 3000 from Rs 5000 earlier.

"In this context SBI would like to state that financial inclusion including JAN DHAN Accounts have never been subject to any charges. In respect of the rest, it has now been decided to exempt the pensioners, beneficiaries of social benefits from the Government and accounts of Minors. Therefore, this is in addition to the already exempted categories under PMJDY accounts and Basic Savings Bank Deposits Accounts (BSBD)," the bank said in a statement. 

This revision is likely to benefit five crore account holders. 

The bank said that six categories of Saving Bank accounts have been excluded from MAB requirements:

i) Financial Inclusion Accounts
ii) Basic Savings Bank Deposit Accounts
iii) Small Accounts
iv) Phela Kadam and Pheli Udaan accounts
v) Minors up to the age group of 18 (Primary Account Holder)
vi) Pensioners, all categories, including recipients of social welfare benefits

The bank has 42 crore saving bank accounts out of which 13 crore accounts under PMJDY/BSBD were already exempted. 

According to statement, SBI also clarified that customer always has the option of converting the regular savings bank account to BSBD account, free of charge, in case he desires to avail basic savings bank facilities without being subject to maintain MAB.