A 'Willful' State Bank Customer who had become 'Thoughtful' Now!!

When I started my Student A/C at SBT (State Bank of Travancore) and during the whole period it was operational (2006-2014), I had the privilege to keep it without even single paise in it as it was a zero balance account. That was the only bank account I had when I started that and till I got my first job on December 2008. So I kept that A/C even after my college completion on August 2008 and I couldn't transfer that then to a branch near my home as SBT were giving no option to transfer Student A/C.

After some time during my stay in Bangalore, for different other reasons, I wanted an SBI (State Bank of India) account and started one. I couldn't close the other SBT A/C till 2013 as I never traveled to my college town after December 2008 and I felt it was not worth to travel to there only to close this A/C.

Later on 2013, I went to my college town to attend a friend's marriage and went to close this SBT A/C as well then. It was just having Rs.21 only in it as I was not keeping any money in it then. Some small amount in it accrued with interest made up that Rs.21. And it was almost non-operational for almost 4 years by then.

Even then, the SBT manager suggested me to keep that A/C considering that is zero balance account (God only knows what gain the bank or him was having by that). My luck that, I still went on with my decision to close that instead of listening to that manager and collected my 'hard earned' Rs.21. :)

If I didn't close that SBT A/C then by listening to that manager, the current merger of all State Banks would have made me end up with two State Bank Savings accounts and I would have been forced to go to my college town now to only close that account as I can't close the second account in Bangalore (There are other bindings attached to the Bangalore State Bank of India A/C). In addition to that, by seeing the recent announcements of keeping minimum balance of Rs,5000, having charges for account operations through branch, confusions about charges for every ATM withdrawals etc., I am thanking God now that I didn't listen to that manager then to keep that SBT A/C during 2014. :)