LAHORE, Sept 8: Banks have decided to discourage opening of accounts by the poor by imposing service charges on accounts with average monthly balance of Rs5,000.

Service charges at the rate of Rs50 per month are proposed to be recovered from the current and PLS savings accounts holders from this month and March next, respectively, according to a notice displayed in the public sector banks.

The banks are discouraging small account holders these days as they used to open accounts with only Rs5 in the 1970s. The teams of banks used to visit the schools for opening the accounts of children with only Rs2.

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