A bank is a financial institution licensed to receive deposits and make loans, they provide financial services like safe deposit, wealth management and currency exchange too. Banks are usually of two types, commercial and investment banks. Commercial banks are the ones that we normally use for our daily transactions while investment banks provide corporate clients with other banking services. Now you would say that you know all this, in the monotony of our lives, some very interesting fun facts about banking makes it even more fascinating.
Listed below are some banking fun facts:
- Banks are required to provide all the forms (opening a bank account, obtaining a cheque book, etc.) to their customers in three languages- Hindi, English, and an appropriate regional language.
- All banks are required to offer free pass books to their customers who have savings accounts.
- You are eligible for transferring your bank account from one branch to another irrespective of the city or the state. Like mobile phone number portability, the government is contemplating a similar process for bank accounts as well.
- If there is a requirement of maintaining a minimum account balance in a particular bank, they are required to inform you about the same along with the applicable penalties. Moreover, if you are to be charged because of non-maintenance of the same, then the bank should inform you one month in advance.
- Banks cannot refuse to accept deposits in small denominations. For instance, you can deposit Rs. 10,000 in 1,000 Rs. 10 notes if you want!!
- Banks can’t refuse to accept scribbled notes, the same has been clarified by the Reserve Bank of India.
- RBI guidelines have made it clear that all ATM-related complaints received by the banks need to be resolved within a maximum stipulated period of 7 days. If the bank fails to resolve the complaint, a compensation of Rs. 100 per day must be paid to the complainant as compensation.
- Interest on term deposits below 3 months is on a daily basis rather than on a quarterly, half-yearly or annual basis.
- As per the RBI guidelines, your personal information collected by the banks is for their own record and banks have no rights to cross-sell your information or share the same with other service providers.
These banking fun facts not only make an interesting read but also help the bank customer to know their banking rights and other guidelines that are often spelled in the very fine print.
