Letters: State Bank of India's minimum balance penalty is an unfair move

This is with reference to State Bank of India increasing its maintenance of monthly average balance (MAB) to Rs 5,000 for branches in six metros, Rs 3,000 for urban, Rs 2,000 for semi-urban and Rs 1,000 for rural branches from April 1, 2017. Non-maintenance of MAB invited heavy penalty. Consequent to large-scale protests and appeals by the public, requirement of MABs and penalty charges were marginally reduced from October 2017. The bank defended the rise in MAB limit and penalty to compensate the cost of maintaining the Prime Minister’s Jan Dhan Yojana accounts. Now, the SBI has come out with a mind-boggling figure of Rs 17.72 billion penalty collected from depositors for non-maintenance of MABs in their Saving Bank accounts during April to November 2017. What the bank has not disclosed is that most of the depositors who have been charged penalty are from the middle and poor class. The depositors, who were unaware or who could not apprehend the revised instructions were totally shocked to find their hard earned small amount deposited depleted. They could not help cursing themselves for having opened and maintained a savings bank account with SBI — the bank, which till the end of March 2017 had allowed to open accounts with Rs 500 without cheque book facility. It is not a matter of pride to SBI to earn Rs 17.72 billion by way of penalty as a substantial portion of it righteously belongs to over a million poor depositors across the country.

Ramanath Nakhate, Mumbai 

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