State-owned Punjab National Bank (PNB) has earned over Rs 645 crore through ATM transaction charges on customers during the financial year 2021-22, news agency PTI reported.

Revenue earned from ATM transaction charges stood at Rs 645.67 crore in FY22, the bank said in response to an application seeking information under the Right to Information (RTI) Act.

PNB also collected Rs 239.09 crore in the form of penalty imposed on customers who failed to maintain minimum balance or quarterly/monthly average balance in their bank accounts, the bank told in a response to Madhya-Pradesh-based RTI applicant Chandrashekhar Gaur.

In 2020-21, the bank had earned Rs 170 crore by levying charges on customers for not maintaining minimum balance in their accounts.

This amount was collected from 8,518,953 accounts during FY22, PTI reported. PNB had a total of 67,637,918 zero balance accounts as of March 31, 2022.

The zero balance accounts in PNB have gone up steadily over the last four financial years from 2018-19 to 2021-22.

As of March 31, 2019, there were 28,203,379 zero balance accounts at PNB, which increased to 30,583,184 by the end of March 2020 and further to 59,496,731 as of March 31, 2021.