SALARY accounts usually offer zero balance, free demand drafts, free international debit cards and a lot more and these are not applicable on regular savings accounts. But when you leave (the company) you leave its perks behind. A lot of people don't know this and this results in some unpleasant surprises.

One such troubled salary account holder, Geeta Rao, reveals, "I had a salary account in a leading private bank. When I left the company, I stopped using the account but did not close it either. Two whole years later, when I deposited a cheque in that account, a hefty fine was deducted for not maintaining the Rs 5,000 minimum balance. So my cheque amount of Rs 6,500 was reduced to a mere Rs 500. Apparently, my salary account had been converted into a savings without my knowledge."

So if you have a salary account, then this is what you should look out for:

- The fine print
I personally don't know anyone who reads the fine print on application forms. Yet, this small and common negligence is a big mistake. The account opening form (for salary account) of ICICI Bank clearly states that if no salary gets credited into your account for six months, the bank will convert your account into a savings account. The bank is not obliged to inform you about this.

HDFC Bank also maintains that since the agreement of salary account is between the employer and the bank they needn't inform the employee.

Not all banks have this approach. Says Sanjay Silas, VP – retail banking, UTI Bank, "The bank informs the client and the corporate in case the payroll special scheme is discontinued due to non credit of salaries."

- The charges
The biggest repercussion of your salary account getting converted to a regular savings account, is the maintenance of minimum balance. If you fail to do so, the bank will levy charges.

Here is a look at some of the charges:

A warning: a low balance account that is continuously hit with charges may run to a negative. That's what happened to Geeta. When she deposited the cheque, the negative balance ate into her cheque amount.

So what can you do to avoid this?
The best thing to do is first find out whether your new employer holds salary accounts with the same bank. If they do, you could well retain the account and continue to enjoy the corporate account benefits.

If that is not the case, then decide whether you need a regular savings account or not, and intimate the bank accordingly.

Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty

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