How To Avoid Minimum Balance Charges On SBI Savings Bank Account?

There is stipulated some minimum balance amount that bank customers are required to maintain on a month on month or quarterly basis and if they fail to adhere to it then penalty amount is charged for it. Saving bank account of SBI is no exception. At a time when already you are tied up with so many other tasks, as per personal finance professionals and experts you should not add to your stress and maintain only one or two savings account at the most. As then it would be easy for you to keep up with the requirement of maintaining average monthly balance.

Further, as an additional precautionary measure, you can also review your account regularly to avoid such charges due to low balance.

Charges being levied by SBI as penalty for not maintaining average monthly balance
SBI for savings bank a/c with average balance of over Rs. 2500 charges Rs. 50 plus the taxes if the minimal average monthly balance is not maintained by the banking customer. So, the largest public sector lender levies a maximum fee of Rs. 100 together with GST amount on a monthly basis if the minimum monthly balance norms are not met.

The levy is after the apex body's approval to banks to charge penalty amount for not maintaining minimum balance amount. The rates or penalty amount differ basis the location of the branch in which customer maintains the savings account i.e for rural, semi-urban, urban and metro bank branches, such penalty charges are different.
For different branch i.e. based on the location of the branch, SBI requires MAB or minimum monthly average balance of Rs. 3,000, Rs. 2,000 and Rs. 1,000 respectively for urban, semi-urban and rural areas.

So, in case you have a savings account with the SBI branch in a metro city then you need to maintain a MAB of Rs. 5000 and if at anytime in the month the minimum average balance comes to be between 0 or Rs. 1500, or there is shortfall of over 75% then in such a case, a penalty amount of Rs. 100 plus GST @ 18% shall apply. And if the shortfall ranges over 50% but less than 75% then penalty of Rs. 75 plus GST shall apply.

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