Академический Документы
Профессиональный Документы
Культура Документы
At present nearly 22% of the deposits are savings bank accounts and 12% are current accounts, according to the report of the RBI on the Trends and Progress of banking in India 2008-2009. That the current account category does not get paid any interest is a separate issue. The savings account category was of the order of Rs 875,000 crore. The interest offered on minimum balance basis is 3.5% and if the effective rate is 1% less, then banks are denying an amount of nearly Rs 8,750 crore to the common man.
It is important to note that maximum savings bank accounts are held by ordinary individuals and a substantial portion of them may not even know about the rip-off. Not only that, the banks also desperately chase what are called current account and savings accounts (CASA) each year in order to augment their cheap source of funding. The critical question the financial system and RBI should address is whether the system should function to facilitate the bankers who enjoy free float or ordinary customers whose money is used freely. The computational difficulties suggested do not hold water anymore since core banking solutions provide enough tools to facilitate the computation. It is told that some banks are resisting to the switchover to the rational system of paying interest on a daily balance basis from first April 1, 2010, by providing all types of excuses. Nowhere in the world is such huge free float made available to the bankers at the cost of ordinary investors. The RBI should insist on introducing interest computation on a daily balance basis on the savings account. The central bank has also to relook at the system of not providing interest on the credit balance kept at the current account when interest is charged on a daily basis as income to the bankers. I think the time has come in the financial sphere wherein we must keep the ordinary customer as centre of things and not the bankers or their conveniences. If we want to achieve financial inclusion, the elementary step is to provide interest to the Ram Singhs and Yellammas of the world, on the money they keep as savings account with the banker. They do not know about the subtleties of minimum balance and subterfuge of the sophisticated bankers. It is fascinating that bankers do not complain about the absence of computational tools when credit default swaps are discussed and interest rate derivatives are analysed. But when it comes to the savings bank account of aam admi, the banker tries to bring any number of issues to deny what is he rightfully owns. One hopes the powerful banking lobby does not sabotage the April 1 deadline and make all the aam admi as fools as in the past. (The writer is professor of finance at Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. Views are persona)