India’s largest bank, the State Bank of India (SBI), has temporarily increased the ceiling for cash withdrawal by customers at non-home branches in view of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is expected to help customers so they won’t have to travel far to meet their immediate cash requirements. The bank has also enabled non-home cash withdrawal by third parties at its branches.
SBI has doubled the amount of cash withdrawal for self (via cheque) to Rs 1 lakh per day. Cash withdrawal for self (through a withdrawal form) along with a Savings bank passbook has been raised five times to Rs 25,000 per day. Third-party cash withdrawals, which were not allowed earlier, have been fixed at Rs 50,000 per month (only via cheque).
‘Home' branch refers to the branch where the customer’s account is maintained while all other branches are called ‘non-home’ branches. The revision in ceilings for non-home transactions for ‘Personal’ segment customers will stay in effect till September-end 2021.
Cash payment to third parties via withdrawal forms has been disallowed by SBI. The branches have been directed to verify KYC (Know Your Customer) documents of the third party and keep them along with the instruments.
The State Bank of India recently reported an 80.15% jump in its standalone profit after tax (PAT) of Rs 6,451 crore in the three months to March 2021, this was aided by higher interest income and lower provisioning for bad loans. The bank had posted a profit after tax of Rs 3,581 crore in the same quarter of FY20. For the full year, its standalone PAT grew by 41% to Rs 20,410 crore as against Rs 14,488 crore in FY20.
"We have further consolidated our performance in the previous quarter (Q4 FY21) both in terms of profitability and asset quality. We have been able to deliver consistent improvement in all the areas of profitability despite the disruptions caused by the pandemic," its chairman Dinesh Khara told reporters.
On the back of its impressive performance, the SBI is paying out a dividend for the first time in four years. The bank has announced a payout of Rs 4 per share, which is the first dividend payout since May 2017, when it had announced Rs 2.6 per share. The dividend will be paid out to shareholders on June 18, 2021.