KARACHI, Aug 1: The State Bank has taken serious notice of violation of rules by banks, which are charging account holders exorbitantly for not maintaining the minimum balance with the bank.

The central bank also expressed its displeasure over the banks not taking adequate steps for promoting Basic Banking Accounts (BBA) as per its instructions.

“Banks are imposing charges on customers for converting their accounts from regular full service banking account to BBA,” said a circular issued by the SBP on Wednesday.

These practices are not only in violation of the instructions, but are also hindering public access to the banking services, it added.

The SBP said that now banks would not recover any BBA operating charges or charges for conversion of regular full service bank accounts to BBA.

Banks will not charge more than Rs50 per month as service charges from their regular account holders on maintaining balance below the minimum monthly average balance.

The SBP is promoting BBA to bring maximum people to the banking system as access of banks to the public is much lower in the country than India and other regional countries.

People having no interaction with banks are generally unaware about the banking products or services offered by them.

The idea of BBA was to attach more and more people with the banking services, it added.