The Punjab National Bank, or PNB, has cut down the interest rates on its savings accounts, in a disappointing news to the lender’s customers. The public sector bank has said for those bank accounts with less than Rs 10 lakh balance, the interest rates have been lowered to 2.70 per cent per annum. For those accounts with a balance between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 500 crore, the interest rate has been reduced to 2.75 per cent per annum. The new rates have come into effect from Monday, April 4, 2022. This will be applicable to both domestic and NRI account holders, PNB said in a notice on its website.
The latest move by PNB will impact lakhs of depositors, many of whom fall in the Rs 10 lakh limit of account balance. This is because the Punjab National Bank is the second largest public sector bank in India, coming just after State Bank of India or SBI. This means that lakhs of customers have a savings account with PNB.
This is also the second time in two months that PNB has reduced its interest rates on savings accounts for depositors. In February, the public sector lender had announced a rate cut on its savings account, providing 2.75 per cent rate of interest for accounts with balances up to Rs 10 lakh. For savings accounts with a balance of Rs 10 lakh to less than Rs 500, an interest rate of 2.80 per cent per annum was being provided. From Monday, both these rates were cut by 0.5 per cent by the public sector lender, days before the Reserve Bank of India’s bi-monthly Monetary Policy Committee meet.
In February, PNB had also announced that it will charge a penalty of Rs 250 if there is a failure of payment of an EMI or any other installment due to the lack of sufficient balance in an account holder’s account. This was previously fixed at Rs 100 in the Punjab National Bank.
Not only this, the non-maintenance of quarterly average balance (QAB) limit in metro city areas has been increased by Rs 5,000 by the Punjab National Bank starting from the beginning of this year. The previous charges for this was Rs 5,000, and the new charges that customers have to pay is Rs 10,000. The PNB has also increased its locker charges in all areas including rural, semi urban, urban and metro cities, while free visit limit to bank lockers has also been reduced.
Under its Gold Monetisation Scheme, the Punjab National Bank is offering interest rates of 0.5 per cent to 0.75 per cent on short term deposits. For medium and long term deposits, an interest rate of 2.25 per cent and 2.5 per cent per annum is being provided.
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