In today’s contemporary world, women are busy substantiating themselves in every sphere of life. Be it in personal space or professional settings. The prominence of a homemaker is improving with respect to managing family finances. Witnessing such progressive changes in the surroundings has led to special changing services of banks to come up with customised designed savings account.
Banks such as ICICI, Kotak, HDFC, and RBL have introduced such customised offers for women to utilise. However, what’s significant is to evaluate whether these specially designed accounts are really beneficial to women in comparison to the regular savings account? On the surface, it may look like the two are different with its respective features, but there are a couple of things you need to contemplate in order to conclude if it’s the right pick for you.
Different offers
Woman’s savings accounts certainly offer supplementary features that are not available when it comes to our regular savings accounts. For example, the offer introduced by Kotak Mahindra Bank, commonly known as ‘Silk – Woman’s Savings Accounts,’ provide with home banking services which include picking up cash from home, cash delivery, cheque delivery, etc. However, these services are available only in select cities for now. Similarly, Woman’s First Savings Account, an initiative by RBL enables account holders to withdraw cash at any ATMs without the need for paying additional charges.
Taking all these aspects into consideration, let’s have a quick look at some of these specialized accounts offered by various banks and compare them with our regular savings accounts.
Axis Bank Women Saving Account
Axis bank offers a lot of benefits to women, depending on the different cities they live in. Axis Bank’s Savings Account enables urban women to maintain a minimum balance of Rs 5000, semi- urban women with Rs 2500 and rural women with Rs 1000. Besides this, other features include withdrawal limits up to Rs 40000 at ATMs, with 5 transactions free at other bank ATMs every month.
IDBI Super Shakti Account
IDBI offers a zero balance saving account to women with an additional benefit of opening two free savings accounts for children below the age of 18. They also offer an auto-sweep facility which can be utilized immediately after the account balance exceeds Rs 15000. As a special feature, there’s a specially designed international ATM cum Debit Card, free 10 transactions at other ATMs and ATM cash withdrawal limit up to Rs 40000.
Yes Bank – Yes First for Women Account
Yes Bank offers a doorstep banking facility to its account holders for cash and cheque. Unlike other banks, the ATM withdrawal limit is much enhanced – up to Rs 100000 and purchase limit per day remains Rs 100000 as well. Moreover, the Yes Bank’s women savings account provides with free accident coverage up to Rs 500000.
You should open woman-centric savings accounts only after cautiously equating the returns as per your needs. It’s recommended that the woman’s savings account would still outscore regular savings account with respect to the features available, offers, discounts, insurance cover and withdrawal limits.
Image source: ThinkStock/Getty/IDBI Bank