Just weeks after State Bank of India decided to increase by 10-fold the minimum balance required to be maintained in a savings account, now there is a growing anxiety among the bank’s 31 crore customers, including students and pensioners, about transaction charges on ATM withdrawals.
While this circular says a transaction charge of Rs 25 will be levied on all withdrawals from ATMs, SBI on Thursday clarified that it would only levy the charge on withdrawals from its SBI Buddy e-wallet using ATMs. Withdrawal of e-wallet money is a new feature that SBI has introduced.
“The service charge on cash withdrawal from ATMs has not been changed for normal savings accounts,” SBI MD (national banking) Rajnish Kumar told PTI, clarifying that a corrected circular will be issued.
Meanwhile, customers must remember to restrict all withdrawals, whether by bank or ATM, to just four a month. Anymore than that and you will be charged Rs 10 plus service tax in State Bank ATM, Rs 20 plus service tax in other ATMs, and Rs 50 plus service tax at your bank branch.
“If a customer has money in SBI Buddy, our mobile wallet, he can now withdraw that money through ATMs. Also, now customer can deposit cash or withdraw cash through business correspondent (BC) from or into our mobile wallet. These facilities were not available earlier,” Kumar added.
For cash deposit of up to Rs 1,000 into its mobile wallet through business correspondents, the bank will levy a service charge of 0.25 per cent (minimum Rs 2 and maximum Rs 8) plus service tax.
For cash withdrawal of up to Rs 2,000 from SBI Buddy through business correspondents, the service charges will be 2.50 per cent of the transaction value (minimum of Rs 6) in addition to service tax.
The service charges will be effective from June 1, 2017, Kumar said.
The bank also levies a service charge of 3 per cent plus service tax using immediate payment service (IMPS) for fund transfer through SBI Buddy to bank account.
So, if you’re thinking cash, rethink and go digital if you don’t want to be ‘fined’. But you’re already paying 1-2 per cent service charge to service providers when booking tickets on IRCTC or paying your utility bills, using your debit card, which is one of the easiest modes of digital payment? That, however, is a separate problem with going digital, and is not linked to State Bank as such.
As for SBI, there are the usual charges on issuing of cheque books and instant digital transfers though IMPS, which too have been revised.
Apart from that, if you want to simply exchange soiled notes, as small traders must everyday, you’ve now got to pay cash to get cash. You can’t just exchange notes for par value; the only exception is if you want to exchange up to only 20 notes and of value less than Rs 5,000.
Anything more than 20 notes, and you now have to pay Rs 2 per piece of currency note, plus service tax. And if the value of the currency exceeds Rs 5,000, you must pay Rs 2 per piece or Rs 5 per Rs 1,000, whichever is higher.
According to the circular, if for example you are exchanging 25 notes of Rs 500 each (worth Rs 12,500)
If Rs 2 per note were charged (on 25 notes), you’d need to pay only Rs 50 plus service tax, but when charged Rs 5 per Rs 1,000, (on Rs 12,500), the fee to be paid comes to Rs 62.50, and that being the higher figure, that is what you’ll need to pay the bank.
(With inputs from PTI in Mumbai)