Thiruvananthapuram: The high service charges State bank of India (SBI) has introduced is going to cost it a high-profile customer with the Thiruvananthapuram city corporation looking for new options for low-cost banking.
The corporation’s main savings accounts were with the State Bank of Travancore until the SBT-SBI merger. Now that these are SBI savings accounts, the number of free monthly transactions in each has been reduced to three. For every additional transaction, the bank charges Rs 50 plus service tax, which comes to Rs 57.50 for Thiruvananthapuram corporation. For the civic body, which has at least 10 transactions every day, this would lead to a big loss of money.
But it is not just the service charges that the corporation is unhappy with. The bank was called for a meeting to discuss the issues, but it was cancelled eventually.
“The service is not the same anymore, even though the employees are the same,” said mayor V.K. Prasanth. “There was a friendlier atmosphere. Now, the SBI does not cooperate as much. Though we are not ruling the SBI out, we are considering other banking options, too.”
It is learnt that the bank has suggested that the corporation split the main savings account into fixed account and savings account.
However, every year, the corporation used to accrue up to '3 crore as interest from the savings bank account. For this reason, it is looking at options with no transaction charges.
The officials also complain that additional service charges are levied on cash transfers from other SBI branches.
To avoid these charges, officials in various zonal offices come all the way to the Vikas Bhavan branch to deposit the tax revenue.
