Whether you are a man or a woman, the first step of managing personal finance is to have a savings account. It can be used to deposit, withdraw, and transfer money with ease. Moreover, the money you put into a savings account earns you extra money as interest. For this and many similar reasons, savings accounts are an important tool to have for anyone. However, it has a special significance for women.
To encourage women in order to open and use savings accounts, many banks offer specifically crafted savings account for women. These accounts offer a large number of special benefits in addition to the regular ones. But the question is, why are these benefits offered? More precisely, how do they help women?
The simple answer is that they help women by providing them opportunities to use their money better. Moreover, the best thing that these accounts do is to make sure that the benefits to women are not limited to the account itself. Here are a few benefits that women’s savings accounts offer and how they can help:
- Higher interest rates
Interest rates are often associated with loans and other types of borrowing. But they are also included in savings accounts. Basically, if there is an exchange of money, some form of interest is often involved. This interest is determined by the interest rate, which is a percentage of a base sum of money. In loans, interest is a certain percentage out of the total amount of money you have borrowed. In savings accounts, it is the total amount of money that is in your account. Based on how much the interest comes to, the bank will pay you interest annually.
Women’s savings accounts in many banks offer a much higher interest rate. Women opening such an account could receive around 6% of interest rate.
- Flexible withdrawals
Many Indian banks include a great deal of flexibility when offering women’s savings account. More precisely, they offer a higher cash withdrawal limit. This limit is the total amount of money that you can remove from your account in a day. Usually, banks offer a ₹ 25,000 limit to their customers. However, in the case of women’s savings account holders, the limit could also go up to ₹ 75,000. You can also see rare instances of banks allowing unlimited withdrawal for their female customers.
- Easy loans
Whether it is a home loan or personal loan, Indian banks offer their female customers an edge when they apply. They offer unique benefits like lower interest rates, quicker processing, discount on processing fees, higher chances of approval, etc.
- Low minimum balance
Minimum balance is one of the trickiest parts of savings accounts. While it ensures that there is always at least a fixed amount of money in the account, it also holds you from spending your own money. Normal accounts need customers to maintain a considerable amount as a minimum balance. Women’s savings accounts make it easier. Usually, regular accounts will ask you to maintain a minimum balance of ₹ 10,000. But these accounts made for women give account holders the minimum balance limit of ₹ 5,000 at most.
