Staggering bank service charge

Bangladesh Bank has expressed its disappointment over charging 1,900 percent or 19 times higher service charge by some local and foreign private commercial banks than the state-owned banks (SoBs) for operating savings account.
Sources said Bangladesh Bank governor Dr Salehuddin Ahmed yesterday expressed his frustration during a meeting of bankers committee and told them that the number of accounts of the private and foreign banks will be reduced gradually as account holders will leave them for this reason.
The central bank governor asked the banks to lower service charge and make it a uniform one. He cautioned that the central bank will be compelled to fix the charge if the foreign and private banks do not do it themselves.
A paper of Bangladesh Bank placed in the meeting shows that the state-owned commercial and specialised banks charge Tk 50 annually for running a savings account. However, many private banks charge Tk 300 to Tk 500 for six months.
In the same way, the SoBs charge Tk 20 to Tk 100 for closing a bank account whereas the private banks charge Tk 50 to Tk 200. Some private banks charge as high as Tk 300 to Tk 500 for the purpose.
The foreign banks charge Tk 250 to Tk 500 for six months for running a savings account. For closing the account, they charge Tk 500.
Bangladesh Bank report said recently they received numerous complaints from the customers regarding imposing charges in different ways on the savings deposit. Some banks refuse to pay interest on the whole amount of deposit if a specific amount of money does not remain in the account. They also deduct service charge from the amount if it is less than the specific amount.
Bangladesh Bank said many banks are making excess profit by imposing illogical charges, which is not desirable at all.