Your Money

GPF account is a provident fund account available only for the government employees.

Leading banks like State Bank of India (SBI), HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, and Yes Bank offer the facility of opening a fixed deposit. These days bank fixed deposits can be created online.

From internet banking facility to investment schemes, SBI provides a variety of options for customer's requirements.

Interest rates on post office saving schemes move in line with the government's interest rates on small savings schemes.

ATM cards (which also act as debit cards), credit cards and prepaid cards (that permit cash withdrawal) can be used at ATMs for various transactions. For transacting at an ATM, you need to insert or swipe your card in the ATM machine.

State Bank of India (SBI), country's largest lender, offers certain accounts where average monthly balance (AMB) rule is not applicable. These accounts do not require customers to maintain any particular minimum average balance. In other words, these bank accounts can be operated with zero balance. Average Monthly Balance (AMB) is the minimum average of deposits required by the bank customers in their savings bank accounts. Customers failing to meet the AMB requirements in a month have to bear certain penalty charges, noted SBI on its portal- sbi.co.in.

SBI minimum balance rules: State Bank of India (SBI), the largest lender of the country, levies certain charges if customers fail to maintain minimum balances in their savings accounts. However, at the same time, it has several savings accounts which do not require maintenance of any minimum balance.

The fixed deposit accounts which have a lock-in period of five or 10 years also offer income tax benefit under Section 80C of the Income Tax Act.

India Post Payments Bank offers three types of zero balance savings accounts: regular savings account, digital savings account, and basic savings bank deposit account.

Sovereign Gold Bond Scheme: A subscriber is allowed a maximum limit of 4 kilograms in case of individuals and HUFs in a financial year. The sovereign gold bond (SGB) is denominated in multiples of one gram of gold, which is the minimum permissible investment limit.

Small finance banks such as ESAF Small Finance Bank, Equitas Small finance Bank and Suryoday Bank offer higher interest rates on savings, fixed deposit (FD), and recurring deposit (RD) accounts compared to their larger peers.

FD interest rates vary across banks and tenures. FD interest rates are subject to change from time to time.

HDFC Bank released its latest fixed deposit or FD interest rates on Saturday. However, state-run lender State Bank of India (SBI) and private sector peer ICICI Bank last revised their FD interest rates in July and August respectively. Bank of Maharashtra last revised its FD interest rates in August.

Interest rates on post office saving schemes move in line with the government's interest rates on small savings schemes, which are revised on a quarterly basis.

The latest FD interest rates of HDFC Bank were released a day after the Reserve Bank of India kept key lending rates on hold in its fourth bi-monthly policy review meeting.