Knowliz

• Why banking is so tough in India?
• Why even in 21st century you need to visit a bank for everything?
• Why you need to write an application for even the simplest activity in a Bank?
• Why you need to pay a transaction fees while doing a Inter Bank transfer?
• Why do banks don’t give a complete kit while opening an account?

There are so many ifs and buts, whys and hows, that many Indian banks can’t answer or may be don’t want to answer.  And hence, I am really pissed off with two Indian banks – State Bank of India (SBI) and IDBI Bank.
I should say it was a total waste of time and energy dealing with these two banks recently just because I wanted to have an account in any Natioanlized Government Bank.

SBI and IDBI both fit that tag of being Government Banks and the way they work shows very much every aspect of being a Government office.
SBI is assumed to be one of the larget banks in India.

1. Application for about everything. – Why? Because that how they can delay the process.
2. They are online but still you have to visit the office for almost about everything or send a written application by fax or mail.
3. There is nothing like management, forget about being proper.
4. You will find lots of people on vacation so other might be obliging their absense.  And you can understand how those obliging people might work.  This is the added responsibility which people don’t like specially in Govt. offices.
5. People go for more frequent tea and smoke breaks.  Calls from friends and relatives has to be attended during office hours only and chat for extended hours.  – Customers go to hell, government is paying these people for their hard work.
6. There are more people than required to execute the jobs and still the jobs are not getting done.  You will be surprised there were over 3 branch managers (different operations) in the same branch I visited.

SBI and IDBI NRI Account Opening Process – My Experience

1. The account opening process in SBI took well over 2 months (counting when you have all the necessary stuff in your hand) where as with IDBI it took more than 4 months.  And that too after being in constant touch with IDBI Relationship Managers at the branch.
2. They don’t provide you with all the necessary things to operate an account.   There is no ‘Welcome Kit’ concept in these banks.
3. You can’t submit the application online.  Download the application online, fill it and send it to an Indian address by mail.  FYI, with ICICI Bank I could submit my application online and got a call from them from India within 48 hours to me in US.
4. They don’t do correspondence at US address, all the documents are sent to your Indian address.  (If you don’t have an Indian address, you are out of luck.)  Not sure if there is another application for that too.
5. IDBI Bank withdrew money from my other account to open the account at IDBI but didn’t open the account for 3 months.  That money was kept as suspended fund at IDBI.  Why did they withdrew the money if there was some problem with the application?
6. I didn’t receive my ATM debit card even after 45 days of opening the account.  And I still don’t have the Cheque book and ATM card for this account with SBI.
7. The login id activation for NRI account takes over 28 days and even after that you are not allowed to do online transactions.  You need to confirm your mobile number in India and then only transaction right will be activated on your account.
8. I had to write and send an application by mail to IDBI Head office in Mumbai to get the transaction facility activated on my account.  I don’t understand why on earth anyone open a bank account without having transaction facility on it.
9. There is no way you could reach these guys from US. No toll-free number, no local access number, No email and even there is no ‘Contact US’ link on SBI website.  There is one toll-free number but that is for Indian customers, not for NRIs.
10. You can open Fixed Deposit (FD) online, but you can’t request a premature closure online even by sending an email from their own website after properly logging in to your account.
11. The ETA for any reply from IDBI bank is around 48-72 hours, it can even be more.  Once I sent a mail to IDBI Lucknow Branch asking why I don’t have transaction rights – I got a reply after 10 days telling me that I had to submit a separate application for it.
12. SBI Bank charges a transaction fees for every transaction you do with other banks. Like transferring money from SBI to IDBI and ICICI etc. For 1 Lakh it is Rs.5 and for 2 Lakh it is Rs.20.  Whereas other banks don’t charge that fee.  I would happily pay this negligible fees if they provide me world class banking facility.  But for the customer service which SUCKS I am not willing to pay even a penny.
13. Their entire online banking system is just immature and needs major improvement.
14. They are government offices – so very negligible chances of improvement in the way they operate unless the entire system is revamped.

1. World class customer service, you just raise a request and someone will contact you asap.
2. You can do everything online without ever visiting the branch.  In my 8 years with ICICI Bank, I would have hardly visited any ICICI bank even 8 times.
3. Their online system is fully mature and provides excellent security.
4. You can add payee, transfer money from ICICI to any bank in India very easily and can pay anyone online.
5. You can open and close FD and many other requests online by writing a mail from inbuilt email system by logging into your account or by just clicking a link.  It’t even better in HDFC that even gives you the FD number right there online with all other details.
6. Being an NRI, I never felt that ICICI and HDFC are in India because they are so accessible. 



7. I might seem a little biased towards these banks, but frankly speaking ICICI and HDFC Banks rock.  Also I am not trying to say that these banks are perfect and customer might not be unhappy with them.  Even if they are not perfect, they are continuously evolving their modus operandi and I happen to be a happy customer.

The Branches I talked about above are located in Lucknow:
State Bank of India, Main Branch, NRI Services, Lucknow and the other is
IDBI Bank, Ashok Marg, NRI Services, Lucknow.
If any of these bank managers is reading this article, then please try to improve your system. I don’t expect much because I am anyway going to close my accounts and head to a path of no return to your bank along with hopefully the people reading this article.
I am sending this article to the corporate offices of these banks in Mumbai and will update this article if I get any response back.

Chairman,
State Bank of India,
PBU,
State Bank Bhavan, 4th Floor,
Nariman Point,
Mumbai – 400 021

IDBI Bank
i-Net Banking Cell
Central Road, MIDC, Plot # 82/83,
Road # 7, Street # 15,
Opp. Specialty Ranbaxy Labs,
Mahakali Caves Road, Andheri (E),
Mumbai, India -400093