SBI Slashes Interest Rate On Savings Account, Removes Minimum Balance Requirement

The State Bank of India (SBI) on Wednesday, March 11, announced that its customers need not maintain a minimum balance in savings accounts.

Till now, the customers had to maintain an average monthly balance of Rs 3,000, Rs 2,000 and Rs 1,000 in metro, semi-urban and rural areas. The bank also used to levy a penalty of Rs 5 to Rs 15 plus taxes if the customers failed to maintain the minimum balance.

The country's largest bank also rationalised interest rate on savings bank accounts to 3 per cent annum, for the second time in a month. The revised rates came into effect from 10th March.

Earlier, the interest rate on SBI saving accounts stood at 3.25% for deposits up to ₹1 lakh, and 3% for deposits above ₹1 lakh.

"This announcement will bring in more smiles and delight to our valuable customers. We believe this initiative would empower our customers towards banking with SBI and boost their confidence in SBI," Chairman Rajnish Kumar in a statement said.

The bank also suspended SMS charges on Wednesday.

In a bit to make home and auto loans more affordable, the bank cut its Marginal Cost of Funds based Lending Rate (MCLR) by 10-15 basis points across all tenors from March 10, 2020.

SBI has more than 24,000 branches and over 400 million customers. It is the largest bank in terms of assets, deposits, branches, customers and employees. As on December 31, 2019, the bank reported a deposit base of over Rs. 31 lakh crore.

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