Money Clarity

Why your bank keeps deducting small amounts

A few hundred rupees leaves your account every quarter with a description no human wrote. It is almost never fraud. It is a small menu of charges that are disclosed once, in a schedule you signed years ago, and never mentioned again. Every one of them is avoidable, and most people are paying two or three.

The problem: they are individually small and quarterly

Each charge is designed to sit below the threshold at which you would call the bank about it, and to arrive on a cycle you do not track. That is not an accident - it is how the schedule of charges works everywhere.

Descriptions are internal codes, not sentences - "CHG:SMS:Q3" tells you nothing deliberately
Most land quarterly, so they never form a pattern in your monthly view
GST is added on top of each, so the amount never matches a round number you might recognise
Nobody at the bank is going to call and tell you that you qualify for a free variant

Every charge, named, with what it typically costs

Amounts vary by bank and account variant. The point is knowing the list exists, so you can check yours against it.

Minimum average balance shortfall: the largest of these by far, running to several hundred rupees a quarter at private banks. SBI removed it for savings accounts; most private banks did not
SMS alert charges: roughly Rs 15 to Rs 25 a quarter, charged whether or not you read them
Debit card annual fee: typically Rs 150 to Rs 500 plus GST, charged on the anniversary, often for a card you never use
ATM withdrawals beyond the free limit: from 1 May 2025 RBI permits up to Rs 23 per transaction plus GST. Free limits are usually 5 at your own bank, and 3 in metros or 5 in non-metros at other banks
Cash deposit or withdrawal at a branch beyond a monthly free limit
Cheque return: several hundred rupees, charged to you even when the other party bounced it
Account closure inside 12 months of opening
Duplicate statement, standing instruction failure, and locker charges

What this adds up to

Worth totalling once, because the annual figure is what makes the ten minutes of effort obviously worth it.

SMS charges plus a debit card fee alone is roughly Rs 400 to Rs 600 a year for nothing you chose
Add minimum-balance shortfalls in two quarters and it is Rs 1,500 to Rs 2,500 a year
Two ATM withdrawals a month beyond the free limit is about Rs 550 a year
None of it is large. All of it is optional, and it recurs forever until someone stops it

How to stop each one

In order of how much they return for the effort. The first is a single conversation and usually the largest saving.

Ask your bank to convert your account to a zero-balance or salary variant. If your salary is credited there you are very often already eligible and have simply never been switched
Cancel the debit card you do not use, or ask for the annual fee to be waived - it frequently is on request
Turn off paid SMS alerts and rely on the app notification, which is free and faster
Plan cash withdrawals to stay inside the free ATM limit, and use your own bank's ATMs
Read your schedule of charges once - it is on your bank's website and it is the only place all of this is written down
Set up a standing alert on your own terms rather than paying for theirs

Where Unyfy fits

Hidden-charge detection is on the free plan, because it is the fastest way to demonstrate the point of the product.

Reads the statement lines banks write in code and groups them as charges rather than as spending
Surfaces them together across every account, which is the only way a quarterly pattern becomes visible
These charges never appear as a category in a normal expense tracker - they get classified as miscellaneous debits
Everything on this page can be done by reading twelve months of your own statements. The app just does it every month instead of once

Common questions

Why does my bank deduct money every few months?

Almost always a scheduled charge rather than fraud — minimum average balance shortfall, quarterly SMS alert fees, a debit card annual fee, or ATM withdrawals beyond the free limit. They are disclosed in the schedule of charges you agreed to at account opening and are never mentioned again.

How much are ATM charges in India beyond the free limit?

From 1 May 2025, RBI permits banks to charge up to Rs 23 per transaction plus GST beyond the free limit. Free limits are typically five transactions a month at your own bank’s ATMs, and three in metros or five in non-metros at other banks’ ATMs.

How do I avoid minimum balance charges?

Ask your bank to convert the account to a zero-balance or salary variant. If your salary is credited to that account you are very often already eligible and simply were never switched. SBI has removed the penalty on savings accounts; most private banks still levy it.

Pull twelve months of statements and search for every debit that is not a purchase. Two or three of the charges above are almost certainly on there. One phone call to switch account variant usually removes the biggest of them permanently.

Written by Danish Mirza, founder of Unyfy. 14 years in Indian lending and collections at Standard Chartered, Barclays, Ola Money and Uni Cards.
Last reviewed 2026-09-09.