In what comes as a good news for homebuyers, the State Bank of India has announced special offers on home loans. The lender said borrowers applying for home loan in SBI will get three benefits - nil processing fee, 0.10% interest concession for borrowers having higher Cibil score for loans above 30 lakh and less than 1 crore, additional 0.5% concession if applied through SBI's Yono app. 

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The announcement was made by the State Bank of India through a tweet. 

“Knock Knock! Who's there? Concessions on SBI Home Loans through YONO. Apply now: http://bit.ly/2AuIk9K *T&C Apply #YONOSBI #HomeLoan #DreamHome #SBI #StateBankOfIndia,” the tweet read. 

All new home loans at SBI are linked to external benchmark linked, which is at present 6.65%. SBI's EBR is linked to repo rate. At present, interest rate on SBI home loans vary between 6.95% to 7.45% for salaried customers  and for self-employed the rate varies between 7.10% to 7.60%. 

The concession on processing fees will also help borrowers save up to 0.40% of the loan amount.  

In a separate development, the SBI has added a new security feature to its debit cum ATM cards. With this new feature, you can block transactions on your SBI ATM card via SMS to ensure that no fraud or illegal transactions occur in case it is lost or misplaced.   

You can even block your cards through customer care call, net banking, and the SBI Quick app -- which allow for switching on or off usage of the card at the point of sale (PoS) and automated teller machines (ATM), and stopping international usage, besides blocking. 

The SMS option comes with multiple benefits, allowing customers to obtain their bank account balance, mini statement, or send a request for cheque books, past six months' account statement, home loan and education interest certificates, etc using this option.