Most Indian banks offer facilities to entice you in opening a bank account with them. It’s important to look past these and focus more on the long term benefits.
Choosing a bank that meets your requirement is quite easy if you know your needs. Based on your requirement you can pick and chose a bank that fulfills your criteria.
After having a list, remember to ask it’s existing customers for opinions. If you want to open a bank account then make sure to check following things before approaching that bank.
Also Read: How to open a current account
Minimum balance requirement to open bank account
All banks across India have criteria of maintaining minimum balance in their saving or current account. You will be required to maintain that much balance either on monthly or quarterly basis depending on your account.
If you don’t, then you will be charged for each such delay in maintaining balance below the limit in your account. Minimum balance differs from one bank to other and based on the type of account you have chosen. This can be in the range of 1000 in a nationalized to as high as Rs. 25, 000 in a private bank.
Private Banks offer zero balance account to salary employees with a condition 
that salary should be credited to their account. Such offers can be availed but please remember these private banks will automatically convert your existing account to some other plan if salary is not credited for certain months.
Once it’s done, you are required to maintain minimum balance as required by that bank. You need to make sure that the minimum balance you have chosen can be kept by you in your bank account.
Nomination
Nomination is the most important factor irrespective of the type of account or banks. Each bank will have a place for nomination in which you can enter any of your family member’s name with their age and relationship with you.
In case of your death, such nominee will be getting the entire money that you kept in your account. You can also have joint nominee by defining the percentage of shares.
Contact Details
In this electronic world contact details like email ID and mobile number along with your addresses matter most. While selecting the bank, you need to make sure that they provide periodical statements to your email ID and all withdrawal and deposit information to your mobile number.
With correct contact details on your bank account, you can easily keep track of your bank transactions even though you are not frequently visiting the branch office.
Bank Interest rate
If you want to earn interest by keeping your money in a bank account then we suggest you to go for banks like kotak, Indusland and YES.
They are offering higher interest rate of 5.5% to 7%. Private Banks are also started auto sweep facility by which after a threshold limit in your account, the excess amount will automatically flow into your recurring deposit or fixed deposit account carrying higher interest rate.
These funds can also be withdrawn at any time in case of requirement. Unless you have a ton of cash that you required for emergency, we suggest you to go for fixed deposits or some other investments to get better interest rates.
Location and Accessibility
Not only location of a branch but location of ATM also counts. Large private and nationalized banks are offering more branches and ATMs across the country by which you will be able to get things done even without visiting the branch.
Bank charges like annual fee for debit card, cheque book charges and demand draft charges are other most important factors to look in while opening a bank saving or current account.
PSU or Nationalized banks like SBI, PNB, BOB, BOI offer low fees compare to private sectors. If you require these facilities frequently then take these factors into consideration. One can also look for other facilities that banks are offering with your type of accounts. Offers like credit card, Demat account, loans and overdraft facilities are based on your minimum balance that you maintain in your bank account.
