Last updated: December 17th, 2019 3:43 PM

Opening a Small Account with Bank

To open a bank account in the name of an individual, certain identity and address proof documents must be submitted as per Know Your Customer (KYC) norms. The Government of India has notified six documents as ‘Officially Valid Documents’ (OVDs) for the purpose of producing proof of identity. These six documents are Passport, Driving Licence, Voters’ Identity Card, PAN Card, Aadhaar Card issued by UIDAI and NREGA Job Card. You can submit any one of these documents as proof of identity. If the document also contain your address details, then it would also be accepted as ‘proof of address’.  However, any person who does not possess any of the above six documents, but still wishes to open a bank account, can open a "Small Account" with any of the Indian Banks.

Small Account - Bank Account in India

Those who do not posses a valid identity or address proof, can still open a bank account known as ‘Small Account’ by submitting recent photograph and signature or thumb impression in the presence of the bank official. Thus, opening of a Small Account does not require any identity or address proof documents.

Limitation of Small Account

However, small accounts have various limitations associated with the account as follows:

• Balance in a small account at any point of time should not exceed Rs.50,000
• Total withdrawal and transfers in a month should not exceed Rs.10,000
• Foreign remittances cannot be credited to a small account
• Total credits in one year should not exceed Rs.1,00,000

Small accounts remain operational initially for a period of twelve months and thereafter, for a further period of twelve months if the holder of such an account provides evidence to the bank of having applied for any of the officially valid documents within twelve months of the opening of such account.