Savings
Bank of India FD interest rates, and whether a smaller PSU pays more
Bank of India’s rate page refused every read on 3 September 2026. What could be checked: the smaller-bank premium is five basis points, and inverts at one year.
Bank of India’s own deposit schedule could not be read for this page: both of its domains returned HTTP 403 to every request on 3 September 2026, so no current Bank of India rate appears here. What can be tested is the assumption underneath the search — that a public sector bank outside the usual comparison set pays meaningfully more. Across ten bank schedules the two medians at the peak sit five basis points apart, and at exactly one year two of the three outside banks pay less than every major, not more.
What Bank of India last published, and why nothing newer appears
The most recent publicly readable copy of the bank’s rupee term deposit page is an Internet Archive capture of 4 February 2026. Its general-public column for deposits below ₹3 crore is stamped “Revised w.e.f 01.12.2025”, so those figures were already two months old when the page was captured and are nine months old now. They are printed to place Bank of India inside the comparison below, and they are not a quote.
| Maturity, deposits below ₹3 crore | General rate, as published 1 Dec 2025 |
|---|---|
| 7 days to 45 days | 3.00% |
| 46 days to 90 days | 4.50% |
| 91 days to 179 days | 4.25% |
| 180 days to less than 1 year | 5.50% |
| 1 year | 6.25% |
| Above 1 year to less than 2 years (except 450 days) | 6.30% |
| 450 days · Star Swarnim | 6.70% |
| 2 years to less than 3 years | 6.30% |
| 3 years to less than 5 years | 6.25% |
| 5 years to 10 years (published as two buckets) | 6.00% |
One inversion is on the card as printed rather than a transcription error: 46 to 90 days paid 4.50% while 91 to 179 days paid 4.25%, so a three-month deposit earned less than a two-month one. Three structural facts on the same page travel better than the rates do, because banks change them far less often — the minimum term deposit was ₹10,000, the maximum tenor ten years, and the 777-day bucket had been discontinued from 1 December 2025.
Three routes were tried to get something newer. Direct requests to bankofindia.bank.in and bankofindia.co.in returned HTTP 403 with and without a browser user agent, and so did the homepage and robots.txt — this is the whole site refusing, not one page. A rate PDF hosted on the same domain does serve, with a status of 200 to a request carrying a browser user agent, which places the block on the bank’s web pages rather than on the domain: the schedule exists and is simply not being handed to an automated reader. And the Internet Archive holds no capture after 4 February 2026.
Aggregators do carry a Bank of India grid, and none of it is used here. This site’s own verification passes have repeatedly turned up rates attached to the wrong tenure bucket and figures cited to pages that could not be read — the errors a republished rate is prone to, because it arrives stripped of the conditions that make it real.
Not readable is not the same as not competitive. On its own last-published ladder Bank of India sat mid-table, and its one-year rate of 1 December 2025 — 6.25% — is what SBI and HDFC pay today. The schedule has not been seen; that is a fact about us, not about the bank.
The premium at the peak is worth about five basis points
The comparison below sets the seven banks in this site’s maintained fixed deposit interest rates table against three public sector banks outside it whose schedules could be read. The test is not balance-sheet size, which is not measured here, but whether sitting outside the standard comparison set predicts a better rate. All rows are callable retail deposits below ₹3 crore, nominal per annum, before tax. Kotak’s and Canara’s rows come from the maintained comparison of 27 August 2026, because neither bank’s rate table renders to an automated read.
| Bank | In the maintained set | Peak general rate | Exact tenor | Rate effective |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kotak Mahindra Bank (private) | Yes | 6.80% | 2 years–<3 years | 10 Jun 2026 |
| Bank of Baroda | Yes | 6.75% | 555 days | 12 Jun 2026 |
| Central Bank of India | No | 6.75% | 444 days | 10 Aug 2026 |
| Bank of Maharashtra | No | 6.65% | 400 days | 10 Aug 2026 |
| Indian Bank | No | 6.65% | 555 days · IND GROW | 4 Aug 2026 |
| Punjab National Bank | Yes | 6.60% | 444 days | 1 Jun 2026 |
| Canara Bank | Yes | 6.60% | 555 days · minimum single deposit ₹5 lakh | 17 Mar 2026 |
| Union Bank of India | Yes | 6.55% | 555 days | 4 Aug 2026 |
| HDFC Bank (private) | Yes | 6.50% | 3 years 1 day–<4 years 7 months | 19 Aug 2026 |
| State Bank of India | Yes | 6.45% | 444 days | 15 Dec 2025 |
| Bank of India | No | Not readable | — | — |
Work the medians rather than the extremes. The seven maintained banks have a median peak of 6.60%; the three outside banks, 6.65%. That is the premium: five basis points, or ₹250 a year before tax on ₹5,00,000. The entire spread from best to worst is 35 basis points, the top of it is a private bank, and the bottom of it is State Bank of India, which is not a small bank on any definition.
Read the effective dates before the rates. They run from 15 December 2025 to 19 August 2026, more than eight months apart. A cross-bank table is not a photograph of one moment but ten photographs taken on ten different days, and some of the apparent spread is only that some banks repriced more recently than others.
One row needs a caveat. Union Bank of India’s 444-day deposit reads 6.50% callable and 6.80% non-callable, and the non-callable column applies from ₹1 crore upwards. The 6.80% fails both tests this table applies — it is not callable and not open to a retail-sized deposit — and it does not displace Union’s 6.55% callable peak on 555 days.
At one year, the premium disappears
The peak column is the wrong column for most readers, because most money is not going into a 444-day deposit. At the tenure people actually use, the ordering falls apart.
| Bank | In the maintained set | At exactly one year | Above one year to two years |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bank of Maharashtra | No | 6.40% | 6.15% |
| Punjab National Bank | Yes | 6.25% | 6.30% |
| State Bank of India | Yes | 6.25% (one bucket, 1 year–<2 years) | 6.25% |
| Bank of Baroda | Yes | 6.25% | 6.25% |
| HDFC Bank | Yes | 6.25% (1 year–<15 months) | 6.35%–6.45% beyond 15 months |
| Union Bank of India | Yes | 6.20% (1 year–399 days) | 6.15%–6.55%, by day count |
| Indian Bank | No | 6.10% | 6.20% |
| Central Bank of India | No | 6.10% (one bucket, 1 year–<2 years) | 6.10% |
| Bank of India (as published 1 Dec 2025) | No | 6.25% | 6.30% |
Two of the three outside banks pay less at exactly one year than every major that could be read. Central Bank of India and Indian Bank both pay 6.10% — ten basis points below the lowest major, and fifteen below SBI, HDFC, Bank of Baroda and PNB. The third pays more, and only for a single day: Bank of Maharashtra publishes a “365 days / One Year” bucket at 6.40% and an “Above 1 year to 2 years” bucket at 6.15%, so a deposit one day longer than a year drops 25 basis points.
That single day is worth five times the entire small-bank premium, and nearly as much as the gap between the best and worst peak in the table. The tenor is at least as consequential as the bank, which is not how the question is usually asked.
Two banks do not publish a single second-year rate. HDFC splits the span three ways and Union Bank runs a separate row for almost every day count, which is why their cells above carry ranges rather than a number. There is nothing to compare until you have fixed the number of days.
Special tenors, not size, set the ranking
Eight of the ten readable peaks sit on a special tenor of a precise number of days — 400, 444 or 555 — rather than on the ordinary ladder. The two exceptions are the two private banks. These are limited-tenor products a bank runs when it wants deposits of a particular maturity, and they are where the premium lives.
The spread inside one bank can exceed the spread between banks. On Central Bank of India’s card the 444-day callable deposit pays 6.75% and the 555-day pays 6.30% — 45 basis points apart on the same schedule, against 35 points between the best and worst bank in the whole comparison. That card is read row by row, against UCO Bank’s, in our comparison of PSU bank FD rates.
Two conditions travel with these rows and get dropped by summary tables. The higher figure printed beside a special tenor is often unavailable to retail money — Central Bank of India’s 444-day non-callable row pays 6.85%, scoped to deposits above ₹1 crore — and Canara Bank’s 6.60% requires a single deposit of at least ₹5 lakh.
Bank of India is the clearest case of the renewal problem these products create. Its 777-day bucket was withdrawn from 1 December 2025, and the 450-day Star Swarnim was described on the bank’s own page as a limited-period offer. Its 6.70% is the number a reader is most likely to have seen quoted and the number least likely to still exist. A rate available today need not exist at maturity, and auto-renewal normally rolls the money over at the rate then applicable, so treat every maturity as a fresh decision.
Bank of India’s senior uplift widens past three years
“Add 0.50% for seniors” is the received rule, and Bank of India’s own schedule shows why it is wrong at the edges — which is exactly where retirees put money.
On the capture of 4 February 2026 the bank gave 0.50% to depositors aged 60 to under 80, and 0.65% to those 80 and above, but only for tenors of six months and above and under three years. From three years to ten years a further 0.25% applied on top, making the effective uplift 0.75% and 0.90%. So the benefit has a floor, disappears below six months, and widens at the long end — and none of that is visible in the rate ladder above it.
That shape is not unique to this bank, and no two schedules scope it the same way; four more are set out in senior citizen FD rates. These are structural rules rather than rates and change far less often, but confirm the customer category on the deposit receipt rather than adding half a point yourself.
Safety is settled before the rate, and the gap is worth about ₹170
The unstated worry behind the question is answered by insurance, not by reputation. The Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation insures each depositor up to ₹5,00,000 per bank, for principal and interest together, held in the same right and same capacity. That figure is identical at every insured bank: government ownership does not raise it and a smaller balance sheet does not lower it. The limit is per bank, not per deposit or per branch, so five deposits of ₹2 lakh at one bank are a single ₹10 lakh exposure with ₹5 lakh of cover, and a principal of exactly ₹5,00,000 is already above the cover the moment interest accrues. Joint holdings, claim timing and the same-capacity test are covered in our guide to DICGC deposit insurance.
That inverts the question. On ₹5,00,000 held for a year, the median small-bank premium is worth ₹250, the full spread from the worst peak to the best ₹1,750, and missing Bank of Maharashtra’s one-year boundary by a single day ₹1,250. Fixed deposit interest is taxed at your slab rate as income from other sources, and generally as it accrues each year even on a cumulative deposit that pays only at maturity; at a 30% slab with cess the effective rate on that marginal interest is 31.2%, so those three become roughly ₹170, ₹1,200 and ₹860 in hand. Our guide to tax on FD interest sets out the thresholds and why deducted tax is an advance credit rather than a settlement.
About ₹170 a year is the honest size of the small-bank premium after tax. Splitting a large sum across banks to stay inside the insurance cover therefore costs close to nothing — the rate given up by diversifying rounds to noise. Run the maturity values on your own principal with the FD interest rates calculator before deciding a bank switch is worth the paperwork.
What to settle before you book
| Action | Realistic effect on ₹5 lakh for a year | When it shows |
|---|---|---|
| Match the maturity date to the date you need the money | Avoids a premature closure recalculated at the shorter-tenure rate and then penalised | At closure, and it is the largest avoidable loss on this page |
| Check the bucket boundary before choosing the number of days | Up to ₹1,250, on the evidence of one bank’s one-day break at the one-year mark | On the booking screen |
| Move to a bank outside the usual comparison set | About ₹250 before tax at the median, roughly ₹170 after | Over the full tenure, and only if the tenor suits you |
| Confirm the senior uplift applies to your tenure, not just your age | Up to 0.50 percentage points, where an uplift widens past three or five years | On the deposit receipt |
| Split so principal plus interest stays under ₹5 lakh per bank | Costs very little, because the banks are 35 basis points apart at most | Only if a bank fails, which is the point |
For Bank of India specifically, the branch or the bank’s own rupee term deposit page is the only acceptable source today, and nothing on this page should be treated as its current card. Before authorising anything, confirm the exact number of days, the contracted rate, the maturity date, whether the row is callable, any minimum single deposit, the customer category, the penalty on early closure, and the total you already hold at that bank for insurance purposes. Then keep the deposit advice: it is better evidence than a rate card that has since been replaced.
Common questions
Why does this page not print Bank of India’s current FD rate table?
Because the bank’s own schedule could not be read. Both bankofindia.bank.in and bankofindia.co.in returned HTTP 403 to every request on 3 September 2026, with and without a browser user agent — the homepage and even robots.txt refused as well. A rate PDF hosted on the same domain does still serve, returning 200 to a request carrying a browser user agent, so the block sits on the bank’s web pages rather than on the domain. The most recent public capture of the deposit page dates from 4 February 2026. Aggregators do publish a Bank of India grid; a rate you are about to hand money to should come from the bank, not from a third party republishing it.
Does a public sector bank outside the usual comparison set pay more?
Barely, and not reliably. Taking the seven banks in this site’s maintained comparison against three public sector banks outside it, the median peak rate differs by about five basis points — roughly ₹250 a year before tax on ₹5,00,000. At exactly one year the ordering reverses: two of the three outside banks pay less than every major that could be read. The highest peak in the whole set belongs to a private bank and the lowest to State Bank of India, so size predicts almost nothing.
Is Bank of India’s senior citizen uplift the usual 0.50%?
Not uniformly, on the last schedule that could be read. As published on the capture of 4 February 2026, the 0.50% applied to retail deposits below ₹3 crore for tenors of six months and above but under three years, with 0.65% for depositors aged 80 and above. From three years to ten years a further 0.25% applied, making the effective uplift 0.75% and 0.90%. Those are structural rules rather than rates, but confirm both the window and the current figure at the branch.
Is a deposit at a smaller public sector bank less safe?
Deposit insurance does not vary with the size of the bank. The Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation insures each depositor up to ₹5,00,000 per bank for principal and interest together, held in the same right and same capacity, and that limit is identical everywhere. Above it you are an unsecured creditor of that particular bank whatever its name. The useful response is to keep principal plus expected interest under the cover at each bank, not to prefer a larger one.
Is the highest number on a comparison table the rate I will actually get?
Often not. Eight of the ten bank peaks compared on this page sit on a special tenor of a precise number of days rather than on the ordinary ladder, and several carry conditions a summary drops — a minimum single deposit, a callable or non-callable distinction, or an amount band that excludes retail money. Each peak also has its own effective date, and across this comparison those dates span more than eight months. Treat any table as a shortlist and confirm the row on the bank’s booking screen.
Sources
Rates and rules on this page were read directly from the following sources on the dates shown. Figures change — if you are about to act on one, confirm it at the source.
- Rupee Term Deposit Interest Rate for Domestic/NRO — returned HTTP 403 to every automated request on 3 September 2026
- Rupee Term Deposit Interest Rate for Domestic/NRO — capture of 4 February 2026
- Interest Rate on Deposit
- Domestic Term Deposits
- Deposit Rates
- Retail Domestic Term Deposits
- Fixed Deposits — Callable and Non-Callable up to Ten Crores
- Interest Rates on Deposits
- Rate of Interest — Domestic Term Deposits
- Fixed Deposit Interest Rates
- Fixed Deposit Interest Rates
- Interest Rates — Deposit Accounts
- Guide to Deposit Insurance