Banks not to impose service charges on dormant accounts

Wednesday, January 06, 2010
By our correspondent

KARACHI: The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Tuesday issued instructions to banks to ensure that service charges were not deducted from accounts which have been marked as dormant.

Amending instructions with regard to issuance of statement of account (SOA), it said the SOA should not be dispatched in case an account has become dormant till such time the accounts are reactivated or new address is made available/obtained by the bank.

It said the banks are required to dispatch free-of-charge statements of accounts to their account holders having a closing balance of less than Rs10,000 at least once in a calendar year. The statement shall be sent within one month from the close of the calendar year.

The SOAs of account holders having a closing balance exceeding Rs10,000 shall, however, be sent either through a courier company or express post services of Pakistan Post.

Similarly, banks are also required to make arrangements with the delivery companies for confirmation of dispatch of all statement of accounts to the account holders and proper record of dispatch should be maintained.

“The banks shall ensure that statement of accounts being dispatched is legible, clear and printed in an appropriate size of font. Where statement of account is returned/undelivered, the banks may make all efforts to update record/address of the account holders.”

Banks may charge a maximum of Rs35 for each duplicate statement of account. Earlier, banks were allowed to charge a maximum of Rs50 for additional statement of account. The statement of accounts to Basic Banking Account customers, however, continued to be dispatched once a year.