Customers are paying more for having debit cards, maintaining low balance in accounts

Representative image. | Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto Having a bank account in India and owning a debit card are becoming increasingly expensive for customers, data presented by the government to Parliament shows. Analysis by The Hindu of the data presented by the Ministry of Finance to the Rajya Sabha, along with separate data held by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), shows that the average per-card amount public sector banks (PSBs) are charging for simply owning a debit card grew nearly 90% in the last five years. Simultaneously, the average per-account amount collected by both PSBs and private banks for low balance increased 21% over the last four years. This increase was, however, due to the charges by private banks. Higher charges for cardsThe data presented by the Ministry of Finance shows that the 12 PSBs collected ₹3905.5 crore as debit card charges in 2021-22. Debit card charges, according to the note, are “annual maintenance charges for debit cards”. This amount increased to ₹7,563.8 crore by 2025-26, a 93.7% growth over 2021-22.However, this increase could also have been due to the increase in the number of debit cards themselves. To analyse whether this was the case, The Hindu mapped the maintenance charges collected to the RBI’s data on the number of debit cards issued by PSBs. This analysis shows that PSBs collected an average maintenance charge from customers of about ₹61 per debit card in 2021-22, which grew to ₹115.1 per card by 2025-26, an increase of 88.8%. Low balance alertThe Finance Ministry’s reply, to a question posed by Rajya Sabha member Abdul Wahab, also provided data on the charges levied by both PSBs and private banks for ‘non-maintenance of minimum average balance’. In total, both categories of banks collected ₹7,086.6 crore under this charge in 2025-26, up 27% over what they collected in 2022-23. But here, too, an increase in the total number of bank accounts could potentially have led to the increase in total charges collected. These charges are not collected on Basic Savings Bank Deposit Accounts, including those opened under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY). A rough analysis of the low-balance charges collected by both PSBs and private banks mapped to the non-PMJDY accounts shows that the per account charge increased from ₹31 in 2022-23 to nearly ₹38 in 2025-26. However, the data also shows that this increase was due to the charges by private banks rather than public ones. The per account charge for low balance by private banks increased by nearly 45% in 2025-26 over 2022-23, while the same charge by PSBs fell nearly 14%.“Of the 12 PSBs, 10 have discontinued penal charges for non‑maintenance of minimum average balance in savings accounts, while two have rationalised such charges, in accordance with their Board‑approved policies and commercial considerations,” the Finance Ministry reply stated.It added that, in cases of non-maintenance of the minimum balance in bank accounts, banks have been advised by the RBI to notify customers through SMS, email, letter or other appropriate means. “Customers are generally provided time to restore the required minimum balance before penal charges are applied,” the government said. Published - July 30, 2026 02:01 pm IST