New Delhi, Mar 13 (IANS): Country's largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) has substantially reduced charges for non-maintenance of average monthly balance (AMB) in savings accounts, which would benefit 25 crore banks' customers, an official statement said here on Tuesday.

The revised charges would be effective from April 1, 2018. This step is taken keeping in view the feedback from various stakeholders, it said.

"We have reduced these charges taking into account the feedbacks and sentiments of our customers. Bank has always focused on keeping the interests of its customers first and this is one of our many efforts towards fulfilling customer expectations. Bank also offers its customers to shift from regular savings bank account to BSBD (Basic Savings Bank Deposit) account on which no charges are levied," said PK Gupta, MD, Retail & Digital Banking, SBI.

The charges for non-maintenance of AMB for customers in metro and urban centres have been reduced from a maximum of Rs 50 per month plus GST to Rs 15 per month plus GST. Similarly for semi-urban and rural centres the charges have been reduced from Rs 40 per month plus GST to Rs 12 and Rs 10 per month plus GST respectively.

The bank also clarified that customer always has the option of converting the regular savings bank account to BSBD account, free of charge, in case he desires to avail basic savings bank facilities without being subject to maintenance of AMB.

The bank has a deposit franchise having 41 crores savings bank accounts out of which 16 crore accounts under Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana/BSBD and of pensioner/minors/social security benefit holders were already exempted. In addition, students upto the age of 21 years are also exempted.