PSBs earn Rs 33 bn from customer charges in past 4 yrs: Shiv Pratap Shukla

Public sector banks earned over Rs 33 billion by levying services and other charges on customers in the last four years, Minister of State for Finance Shiv Pratap Shukla said on Tuesday.

As per the RBI directive, banks are permitted to fix service charges on various services rendered by them, as per their board approved policy, while ensuring that the charges are reasonable and not out of line with average cost of providing these services, the minister said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.

Basic banking services including Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana are provided without any charges, he said.

"Service/miscellaneous charges have thus always been levied by banks as per the extant guideline of RBI. As regards the service/miscellaneous charges made applicable during the last four years, Rs 33.24 billion has been realised, as informed by public sector banks," Shukla said.

Besides, there were 533 million basic savings bank deposit accounts, including 308.4 billion Jan Dhan accounts by end-December 2017 for which no charges were levied for non-maintenance of minimum balance, he said.