Bangalore: Saving deposits are the most preferred means of earning a monetary return and one of the cheapest sources of earning funds. They incur an interest return which lifts up the deposit value in the long run. But surprisingly, majority of Indians depositors are not aware about the interest rates and the monetary return benefits even though the RBI has freed up the interest rates at a high unit level to gain customer attention.

According to the Neilson report, it was found that near about 46 percent of the Indian population are not aware of the interest rates offered by their banks, while 54 percent of account holders were conscious of the interest payment on savings. Out of these only 18 percent posses the correct information about the current interest rate on savings reports Economic Times.

The RBI has de-regulated the interest rates which have been fixed at 4 percent at an early stage last year. This has led other commercial banks such as Yes Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank to boost their interest rate till 6 percent on interest return. Following the RBI rate, SBI and HDFC Bank has also fixed the interest rate to 4 percent on account deposit scheme.

This was revealed in a research carried out  in the month of Nov-Dec involving 9 cities- Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Bhubaneswar, Delhi , Chennai, Coimbatore, Ludhiana, Kolkata and Bangalore where 738 respondents were interviewed face to face to obtain an estimate of the awareness level. It is also revealed that about 57 percent of account holders’ possess health saving bank accounts pertaining to medical emergencies. Around 50 percent of the account holders expressed their contentment in the ease of accessing money at any point of time with increased interest rates.