Newly, implemented Goods and Services Tax is ushering some unplanned advantages for the financial institutions or banks. Several Financial Institutions such as ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, and DCB Bank, are now providing new services to companies to file their monthly tax returns under the GST by availing bank websites.
The new services being offered by the banks is beneficial for the small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which are frightened about the implementation of the new indirect regime, but, comfortable in handling internet banking.
President of Retail and SME banking at DCB Bank, Praveen Kutty, said, “Our site helps customers create an invoice and reconcile their accounts.” He further added that “Our expectation is that customers using our site to fill their monthly returns will eventually make ours their primary bank account. It also enhances our ability to give loans, monitor cash flows and also will help us get access to their suppliers.”
So far DCB Banks has 5 lakh customers, out of them 90% are self-employed. Axis Bank is also providing similar services to their customers, that means Axis Bank customers can also file their monthly GST returns by availing bank website.
Jairam Sridharan, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Axis Bank said, “This is an additional service, customers still need help to file returns.” He further added, “This service will gain traction only when they are comfortable with filing returns. It remains to be seen as to how much it enhances credit appraisals.”
Sridharan said, “But there are no free lunches nowadays, so banks may either charge their customers or ensure some kind of a minimum balance to offer this service.” He further added that Axis Banks is planning to provide similar facility or services to non-customers also over the coming months.
According to the DCB, Bank will charge Rs 250 per month for per GST identification number (GSTIN) to submit their monthly GST returns with the minimum account balance of up to Rs 50,000. Every state has a different GSTIN number. Companies who have the higher balance in their account can use GSTIN often at the minimum cost.
Experts said that Bank will look into the matter of new GST services being provided by them and will compare with the other corporate services. Apart from these, Bank will try to provide maximum benefits to their customers at minimum cost for filing monthly GST returns
MS Mani partner at Deloitte said, “Banks are under constant pressure to weed out non-KYC compliant accounts.” He further added that “This (service) will help them to detect these because clients that are regular in filing returns are likely to be KYC compliant.”
