Up until about July 2020 SBI too was giving 25 free cheque leaves to savings account holders per fiscal but this has been reduced to 10 since then. SBI regular savings account customers now get “First 10 cheque leaves free in a financial year,” according to its website.
ET Online called SBI’s customer care on June 28, 2021 and the call centre executive confirmed this. As per the SBI website, after the first free 10 cheque leaves per financial year, it will cost the savings account customer Rs 40 plus GST for a 10 leaf cheque book, and Rs 75 plus GST for a 25 leaf cheque book.
Here is a look at cheque issuance rules and charges of some other leading private and public sector banks as per details on their respective websites on June 28, 2021, for regular savings accounts.
| Bank | Cheque issuance charges |
| SBI | First 10 cheque leaves free in a financial year; Thereafter: 10 leaf cheque book at Rs 40 plus GST, 25 leaf cheque book at Rs 75 plus GST |
| Punjab National Bank | One cheque book of 20-25 leaves free in an FY; Personalised request through: (a) Digital mode: Rs 3 per leaf; (b) Branch: Rs 4 per leaf Non-personalised: Rs 5 per leaf |
| Bank of Baroda | Metro-Urban after 30 leafs in a financial year charges at Rs 4 per cheque leaf |
| HDFC Bank | Free: 25 cheque leaves per financial year Additional chequebook of 25 leaves charged at Rs 75 per chequebook For senior citizens (from March 1, 2021) Free: 25 cheque leaves per financial year Additional cheque leaf charged at Rs 2 per leaf |
| ICICI Bank | Nil for 20 (Being increased to 25 free cheques with effect from August 1, 2021) payable-at-par cheque leaves in a year Rs 20 for every additional cheque book of 10 leaves |
Source: Bank websites
Going by these numbers, it can be seen that customers of banks like HDFC Bank, PNB and Bank of Baroda get more free cheque leaves issues each year than those of SBI. What is more, ICICI Bank is in fact increasing the number of free cheque leaves issued to its savings account customers from August 1, 2021.
Free cheque leaves is a service extended by banks to savings account holders to allow them to use their money for transactions in lieu of the saving account balance that the account holder kept with the bank. Many years ago at one point of time most banks gave 25 cheque leaves free to account holders per quarter, i.e., 100 in an year. However, with increasing freedom of operation given to banks by RBI this practice started changing.
During the last one year, SBI completely waived penalty on non-maintenance of minimum balance in savings accounts. However, this appears to be the other side of the coin. Quite obviously, less free cheque leaves means more savings for SBI. Apart from cost cutting, this move may well be an effort to push people to use digital banking channels more and more.
However, is pushing people towards digital transactions through such methods justified? In India large number of people are yet not comfortable making large money transactions online. Online transactions need to be conducted very carefully in order to safeguard oneself against loss of money due to fraud. This is in fact underlined by the banks and RBI itself. With more and more new methods of digital payment and players coming up, learning the absolutely safe method of using each method will and does take time. Further there are technological hurdles also. Mobile apps of big banks have faced many technical glitches.
For instance, HDFC Bank is grappling with many technical issues with its mobile banking app and its managing director even apologised to its customers recently for the many outages.
Technology or technical glitches also held up and/or delayed a large number of financial transactions at the end of the last financial year, i.e., March 31, 2021. Many customers of various banks faced issues related to the transfer of money via NEFT, IMPS and UPI at this time. Click here to read the full story.
