SBI vs Indian Bank: Children’s Savings Accounts

SBI offers two children’s savings accounts, Pehla Kadam and Pehli Udaan while Indian Bank provides the IB Smart Kid SB Account for children and probably its standard savings account jointly with a parent or guardian.

Children’s Savings Accounts from SBI

Pehla Kadam

This account is meant for all children and may be opened jointly with a parent or guardian.

Features

  • There are no minimum balance requirements in this account
  • There is a limit of Rs. 5,000 on daily transactions. Transactions such as bill payments, prepaid mobile top-ups have a limit of Rs. 2,000 within the Rs. 5,000 limit
  • SBI offers an auto-sweep option with this account called SBI Multi Option Deposit Scheme (MODS). If the accountholders opt for this, then any amount above Rs. 20,000 in the account is put in a term deposit. The MOD is initially for a sum of Rs. 10,000 and in Rs. 1,000 multiples thereafter. As is common for banks, there is no clarity on the website if the auto-sweep facility kicks in if the account has a balance of Rs. 30,000
  • There is a cap of Rs. 10 lakh on the maximum balance in a Pehla Kadam account
  • The kid is eligible to get a specially branded chequebook and passbook, and also a personalised debit card with her own photo

Note: The links to specific accounts may not work. The above data was taken from internet searches. We have put the links here in the hope that they work some day. Even the WayBack Machine shows an error when we tried to pull a page from July 5, 2017.

Pehli Udaan

The account is meant for kids above 10 years of age. They are allowed to open and operate the account on their own.

Features

  • As mentioned, any child above the age of 10 years who can read and write, may open the account in her own name without the need for any parent or guardian
  • Except for the age criteria, the other features of the Pehli Udaan account are same as for the Pehla Kadam account

Children’s Savings Accounts from Indian Bank

The bank offers the IB Smart Kid SB Account for children and in all likelihood, its savings account also under the parent’s or guardian’s name as done by most banks though information on that is not clearly available in the website.

IB Smart Kid SB Account

The bank offers the IB Smart Kid SB Account for children who are only 1 day old to those below 18 years of age.

Features

  • The bank mandates a minimum average monthly balance of Rs. 100 for accounts without chequebooks and Rs. 250 for those that have chequebooks
  • Kids above 10 years are eligible to have their own debit card provided the parent or guardian agrees to the issue of the card
  • The child also gets access to the online account if the parent or guardian provides her consent
  • Interest is credited quarterly in the months of January, April, July and October

Reference Facts

  • State Bank of India Website: https://sbi.co.in and www.onlinesbi.com (net banking)
  • Headquarters: Mumbai, Maharashtra
  • Call Centre Number: 1800 425 3800, 1800 112 211, 1800 110 009 (pensioners only)
  • Indian Bank Website: www.indianbank.in and www.indianbank.net.in (net banking)
  • Headquarters: Chennai, Tamil Nadu
  • Call Centre Number (24 Hours): 1800 425 00 000, 1800 425 4422