A clip of a news bulletin by Zee Business is being shared on social media. The news presenter in this clip explains that effective from 20 January, free banking services will be discontinued. The description of the social media post which shared the clip reads ‘*RBI’s New Banking Rules w.e.f 20.01.2023*’ Let’s fact-check this claim through this article.
Claim: Free banking services to discontinue from 20 January 2023 – RBI.
Fact: The news clip shared in the viral post is a clipped version of a news bulletin published by Zee Business in January 2018. Reportedly, in 2018 when this news went viral, the Government of India clarified that the claim was baseless. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
Based on the Zee Business logo that appears throughout the video clip, we understood that the viral clip could be a snippet from a News Bulletin published by Zee Business. We searched the internet with relevant keywords to look for the video published by the official social media handles of Zee News, which led us to one of their Tweets from January 2018. This tweet contains a longer version of the video clip in the viral post. The text in this tweet reads, ‘20 जनवरी से महंगी हो जाएगी बैंकिंग ! देखिए, किस काम के लिए कितना चार्ज लगेगा?‘
Further search on the internet for news reports published on these alleged new banking rules led us to multiple news reports (here and here) from 2018. The Government of India reportedly said these claims are just ‘baseless rumours. ‘Reacting to the hoax, Rajeev Kumar, secretary of the Department of Financial Services, tweeted: “No proposal by Banks to discontinue free services from 20th January. Pure Rumours. Pl Ignore..” IndiaTV News reported. Rajeev Kumar also posted a circular by the Indian Banks’ Association, which labelled these news reports as baseless and false. You can read his tweets here and here.
To sum up, 2018 Zee News report is now being falsely shared as RBI discontinuing free banking services from 20 January 2023.
