Banks Collected Over Rs 35,000 Crore As Charges From Public Since 2018
They collected Rs 21,044 crore for non-maintenance of minimum balance and Rs 8,289 crore for additional ATM transactions.
Banks have collected over Rs 35,000 crore since 2018 on account of penal charges for non-maintenance of minimum balances, additional ATM transactions, and SMS services, the Union government has told Parliament.
The data showed figures collected from public-sector banks and major private sector banks, including Axis Bank Ltd., HDFC Bank Ltd., ICICI Bank Ltd., IndusInd Bank Ltd. and IDBI Bank Ltd., in the last five years, Bhagwat Karad, minister of state for finance, said in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.
These banks collected Rs 21,044.4 crore on account of non-maintenance of the minimum bank balance, Rs 8,289.3 crore for additional ATM transactions, and Rs 6,254.3 crore from SMS services, Karad said.
With effect from April 1, 2015, banks are permitted to fix reasonable penal charges when it comes to the non-maintenance of the minimum bank balance in savings accounts, according to the Reserve Bank of India's master circular on customer service in banks.
The RBI circular said banks were required to put in place a system of online alerts for all types of transactions. However, in order to ensure reasonableness, the central bank has advised banks to ensure that such charges were levied to customers on an actual basis.
Regarding ATM transactions, banks offer savings-bank account holders a minimum of five free financial transactions in a month irrespective of the location, according to the RBI's updated ATM guidelines as of November 2022.
For financial transactions from ATMs of other banks, customers are also eligible for three free transactions in metro cities and five from non-metro locations in a month.