BB cuts charges on banking services

The Bangladesh Bank issued a master circular on Thursday reducing or waiving charges on banking services including deposits and loans.

Customers from now on will be able to create a savings account with Tk 500 and a current account with Tk 1,000 as an initial deposit due to the change in charges.

However, specially privileged people will be allowed to open all types of deposit accounts without making an initial deposit.

After a number of recent complaints of some lenders demanding their customers keep an unreasonably large sum of money in their accounts, the central bank made the decision of revising the charges.

Banks have been asked to provide customers with a free balance confirmation certificate, also known as a bank statement, twice a year, and charge Tk 100 for each statement only after that.

The central bank also directed all banks not to charge fees for activating inactive accounts, and charge a maximum of Tk 200 for solvency certification.

Other reductions in fees include the need that a borrower from a bank count 2 per cent of the outstanding loan amount when paying off a credit early.

According to the new Bangladesh Bank (BB) circular, consumers will henceforth be charged a 0.5 per cent fee for an early settlement of their accounts.

In addition, banks will not be able to charge early settlement fees on loans to the cottage, micro, small and medium enterprises (CMSMEs).

Banks can impose a maximum processing fee of 0.5 per cent of the loan amount, but not more than Tk 15,000, for loans up to Tk 50 lakh.

For a loan amount of over Tk 50 lakh, the fee might be up to 0.3 per cent of the loan amount, with the fee not crossing Tk 20,000.

Previously, banks used to set their own fees for loan applications and rescheduling. However, no 'loan application fee' can be charged by the banks from now on, as per the circular.

Enterprises in the CMSME and agriculture sectors will be able to reschedule or restructure their loans without any loan processing, reschedule or restructure fee or commission.

In cases of default loans of enterprises in other sectors, banks can charge up to 0.25 per cent of the existing loan, with a cap on Tk 10,000, as a reschedule or restructure fee.

Meanwhile, banks have been barred from charging clients more than Tk 200 to close savings accounts and over Tk 300 to close current accounts.

However, accounts owned by specially privileged people including marginalised individuals, freedom fighters, street children etc. will be exempted from these fees.

Among other instructions as per the master circular, beneficiary owner (BO) certificates can be acquired for Tk 100 each.

Banks cannot charge their clients with minimum balance fees, incidental charges, ledger, and counter-charge fees.

Furthermore, transferring an account from one branch to another within the same district will cost Tk 50. Transfer of account from one district to another, however, will cost Tk 100.

There will be no maintenance fee for accounts with deposits of up to Tk 10,000. The accounts with deposits of more than this amount will be charged with previously fixed maintenance fees.