Banks have various types of accounts. In India, Recurring Deposit (aka, RD) is a popular means of saving every month. It's not as attractive as stocks, mutual funds or Systematic Investment Plans, but it is one of the safest and regular means of saving (as long as the credit rate of the bank is good).
Bank of Baroda, where I have an account has a special type of RD scheme. With an normal RD scheme, you can only save a fixed amount every month. For instance, if your installment is Rs. x at the time of opening an account, it should always be Rs. x, nothing more, nothing less. But the uniqueness of this special account is, you can deposit anything equal to or more than the minimum installment (of course, there is an upper limit, but that is very high).
I found this scheme very attractive, because my expenses vary every month and I can't really predict how much I can save. So, I jumped to the sky and opened a "special" RD account for the minimum installment of Rs. 6000.
For quite a few months, I was happily depositing Rs. 6000, Rs. 8000 and even Rs. 10000. So far, so good.
One fine day, when I attempted to pay Rs. 8000 as the installment, I was stopped by the teller. She told me that I would have to pay in multiples of Rs. 6000 only. I was surprised and showed her all my past receipts paying various amounts. Know what her response was?
It could have been like that in the past, but not any longer.
Me: But why wasn't there a notification to me, either through mail or phone?
She: I don't know about that, but that is the policy now.
Me: (wanted to probe a little) Can you tell me the real reason of why it changed now?
She: Sir, we have deployed a new Core Banking Solution called ******* and it does not allow paying different amounts. Even if we allowed it, we will end up doing a lot of calculations and that means a lot of trouble for us.
(Funny, I thought doing a lot of calculations was bankers' bread and better)
Me: Okay, please allow me to pay Rs. 8000 this time only. From next month you can enforce the new policy.
She: Sorry Sir, nothing can be done about that, you got to comply to what our IT system dictates (She started sounding very rude here and raised her voice), there is no way that our IT system can be modified.
I would not budge. I ran from pillar to post to prove my point (talked to her boss, talked to his boss). I explained to them how it will make things very difficult for me and I'll be forced to save either too less or too much every month. But instead of listening to me, everyone was trying to educate me on how to go with the bank's dramatic policy changes without complaints!
Finally I asked why the branch can't push the management to abolish this scheme as soon as they can (so the customers will not mistakenly believe that they still have a special RD account) or force the IT vendor to make provisions of the special scheme. Since they have implemented the IT solution in hundreds of branches and presumably paid a lot of money, I didn't think it is difficult for them to raise the red flag with the vendor. The response was simple: Sorry sir, we are powerless to even escalate this to our management. Already we have lost many customers, please don't publicize this.
Later, I was analyzing the key issues the bank has (discounting the rude behavior of the staff):
1. The bank may have posh interiors and state-of-the-art Core Banking Solution. However, there is no CRM or formal feedback system in place.
2. I'm not sure if the branch staff are taking the issues to upper management. Even if they do, I'm not too sure if they are taken seriously. In my case, the best response could be to ring up a higher official (maybe sitting in the head office), escalate this and ask how to handle this case. The next best response could be to just give me a piece of paper to vent off my anger and then promptly send it to the head office. While this may not have changed anything on their side, it would have at least pacified me that I'm heard.
Now you can guess if I'll ever do anymore business with this bank!
Bank of Baroda, where I have an account has a special type of RD scheme. With an normal RD scheme, you can only save a fixed amount every month. For instance, if your installment is Rs. x at the time of opening an account, it should always be Rs. x, nothing more, nothing less. But the uniqueness of this special account is, you can deposit anything equal to or more than the minimum installment (of course, there is an upper limit, but that is very high).
I found this scheme very attractive, because my expenses vary every month and I can't really predict how much I can save. So, I jumped to the sky and opened a "special" RD account for the minimum installment of Rs. 6000.
For quite a few months, I was happily depositing Rs. 6000, Rs. 8000 and even Rs. 10000. So far, so good.
One fine day, when I attempted to pay Rs. 8000 as the installment, I was stopped by the teller. She told me that I would have to pay in multiples of Rs. 6000 only. I was surprised and showed her all my past receipts paying various amounts. Know what her response was?
It could have been like that in the past, but not any longer.
Me: But why wasn't there a notification to me, either through mail or phone?
She: I don't know about that, but that is the policy now.
Me: (wanted to probe a little) Can you tell me the real reason of why it changed now?
She: Sir, we have deployed a new Core Banking Solution called ******* and it does not allow paying different amounts. Even if we allowed it, we will end up doing a lot of calculations and that means a lot of trouble for us.
(Funny, I thought doing a lot of calculations was bankers' bread and better)
Me: Okay, please allow me to pay Rs. 8000 this time only. From next month you can enforce the new policy.
She: Sorry Sir, nothing can be done about that, you got to comply to what our IT system dictates (She started sounding very rude here and raised her voice), there is no way that our IT system can be modified.
I would not budge. I ran from pillar to post to prove my point (talked to her boss, talked to his boss). I explained to them how it will make things very difficult for me and I'll be forced to save either too less or too much every month. But instead of listening to me, everyone was trying to educate me on how to go with the bank's dramatic policy changes without complaints!
Finally I asked why the branch can't push the management to abolish this scheme as soon as they can (so the customers will not mistakenly believe that they still have a special RD account) or force the IT vendor to make provisions of the special scheme. Since they have implemented the IT solution in hundreds of branches and presumably paid a lot of money, I didn't think it is difficult for them to raise the red flag with the vendor. The response was simple: Sorry sir, we are powerless to even escalate this to our management. Already we have lost many customers, please don't publicize this.
Later, I was analyzing the key issues the bank has (discounting the rude behavior of the staff):
1. The bank may have posh interiors and state-of-the-art Core Banking Solution. However, there is no CRM or formal feedback system in place.
2. I'm not sure if the branch staff are taking the issues to upper management. Even if they do, I'm not too sure if they are taken seriously. In my case, the best response could be to ring up a higher official (maybe sitting in the head office), escalate this and ask how to handle this case. The next best response could be to just give me a piece of paper to vent off my anger and then promptly send it to the head office. While this may not have changed anything on their side, it would have at least pacified me that I'm heard.
Now you can guess if I'll ever do anymore business with this bank!
4 comments:
:) Good read. I too would have been happy to take that account.
The other thing you can do (and possibly earn from it) is ... give this lead to the IBM sales team. Tell them the customer woes and ask them to implement one of the efficient IBM systems :)
Thanks for your idea. However, this customer's woes are with the Core Banking product and as far as I know, IBM does not supply any such product, only supplies middleware needed for CBS!
Why no more posts?
Ramesh,
I think you were treated like that because you were not a privileged customer :-)) hee hee.
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