I M Tarun Singh

Recently I had to submit a demand draft(DD) in college for taking admission. The value for which demand draft had to be made was Rs. 55062. Banks have a rule that you must have to debit money from account for making demand draft if the value of DD is above Rs. 50,000. This is done for tax purposes. However, if the demand draft value is less than Rs. 50,000, there is no need of bank account. You can simply pay by cash in that case. Applying for DD offline takes time. First, you have to fill form and attach a cheque if the DD amount is above Rs. 50,000. Then you have to wait for like at least half an hour for DD in the bank if the bank is PSU like State Bank of India(SBI), Punjab National Bank(PNB), etc. Also there are chances of mistyping of institution name(in favour of) in DD by bank officials since it is entered by them.

This post tells you how you can open a fixed deposit or FD account online in SBI using Internet banking. Basically you need to have Internet Banking enabled on your SBI savings account to open a fixed deposit online. If you don't have Internet Banking enabled, just go to your SBI branch and ask them for a 'Online SBI Registration Form'. Fill the form and they will give an envelope containing your Username and Password. The interest rate given on savings account in SBI is just 4% which can't beat rate of inflation. It means customer's money is depreciating in savings account. In this case, FD can prove to be a better investment which gives interest in the range of 5.50% to 7.75% depending on the duration of investment. The duration of FD can be 7 days to 10 years.