If you remember, just a few days ago ICICI Bank hiked their minimum balance requirements to an absurd level — for a normal savings account they expected customers to maintain ₹50,000 average balance. After public outrage, they rolled it back, but still kept it higher than before. That was at least an official step.
But what’s happening at branch level is even worse. ICICI Bank is flat out refusing accounts for people with low income or those who can’t bring in a heavy initial deposit cheque. As per multiple reports on TF Community, branches often demand a ₹5 lakh cheque as initial deposit, and only after negotiation they sometimes come down to ₹1 lakh. If you want to open an account with less than ₹1 lakh, chances are they’ll simply deny you.
Forget about BSBD (zero-balance) accounts — many branches won’t even entertain customers asking for them.
One of our members recently tried opening an account with ICICI. He was denied. When he shared his experience on Twitter and here on Technofino, the branch manager himself showed up only to say:
“You need to maintain ₹1 lakh average balance and bring ₹5 lakh as initial deposit. If you don’t have that financial capability, we can’t open your account.” That’s how blunt it was. Here’s a copy of his complaint email:
View attachment 109921
And this is not an isolated case. We’ve seen many such complaints, both on TF Community and across social media. Honestly, ICICI’s management comes across as arrogant, and their branch-level staff are no different. The bigger question is — why isn’t the RBI regulating initial deposit and minimum balance rules? ICICI has no set standard, it’s literally
their bank, their rules. If you can’t bring a big-ticket cheque, you’re treated as a “low-profile” customer — and they don’t want you.
If the RBI doesn’t step in, other private banks may follow this same path. This is clearly against customer interest. While most PSU banks are moving towards zero-balance accounts, ICICI (thankfully only ICICI for now) is going the opposite way, making banking exclusionary.
Hopefully, people will take notice of this trend and shift towards PSU banks and customer-friendly private banks — the ones that value customers instead of acting arrogant.
