A tale of two banks - 2
The phone banking executive should have said ‘Hello’ a few times and decided to truncate the call! He dialed the phone banking number, standing outside the ATM.
The same ordeal started again. After dutifully pressing 1 and then and all other random numbers as directed by the IVR, he soon figured out he best way was to talk to phone banking executive yet again. So he dialed 9.
“Good morning sir, how may I help you.?” He was asked for his bank account number which stretched to 13 digits. Now, remembering 13 digits was always a challenge. He always had an old ATM transaction slip in his wallet for this purpose.
He was then asked for address confirmation blah blah.
And then he said, ‘I just want to know the balance in my account’
CC executive, ‘Sorry sir, for that you need to have your T-PIN number’
‘T-PIN number? What’s that?’
“Its telephone Personal identification number. If you don’t have one, we will help you generate a T-PIN of your own. Please hold the line sir”.
After some more Beep, Beeps, the girl asked him to enter a 6 digit number of his choice.
And then said, from now on he can check the balance over phone using that T-PIN number.
He decided to go back home. ‘Let me go home and try from my landline without any disturbance’ he thought. He came near home and tried recollecting the t-pin number that was just created but could not! That had already evaporated.
‘Not my day’, he thought.
When he came home, he was shocked to find the door being open.
His mom had already come, and what’s more had some cash and a pass book on the table. So she knew the balance and had withdrawn cash before he could without any of the paraphernalia that banks givenowadays! To add insult to injury, she was much more relaxed without any need to remember any arcane number and transaction.
He wanted to find out if his company offered a salary account in that old fashioned public sector bank. Enough of this crappy TPIN, IPIN and JPIN funda which was nothing but cognitive overload. Public sector banks operate from 8 to 8 nowadays. They offer a debit card but does not discourage you from approaching their branch office when needed. No Qs in front of their ATMs. No PINs, passwords, or tonnes of paper which we have to maintain for ever, lest we miss out on something. The more he thought about it, the more he liked it.
Save for NetBanking facility, nothing he had seen made any sense in this new age banking practices
If he had such a tough time handling all this, he just thought about his mother’s plight if at all he had to go abroad and his mom had to handle all the banking issues then.
Unless and until banks come up with a system which is easy to use yet safe and secure, there is no point fretting about T-PINs, Phone banking etc.
‘My old fashioned SBI, here I come’ he said to himself!
February 16th, 2007 at 12:41 am
Hey karthi…Unga amma kuu congrats sonnen nnu sollunga
I think more than anything elders are intimidated by the new-age banks.
And I dont see any signs of welcome from the bank officers there.
My mom is on first name basis with most of the officers in our regular banks.
February 16th, 2007 at 7:40 am
PK, the pathetic situation is when you need help. And the phone reps are hardly of any help in such situations. Sonnadhaye sollum kilipillai maadhiri they keep saying whatever has been told to them. Even worse, you can surpass them to speak to someone at a higher level. Maybe these are all the tags attached with claims to extra facitilies, more tech oriented etc.
February 16th, 2007 at 7:41 am
Sorry, previous comment-la it should have read :
Even worse, you can’t surpass them to …
February 16th, 2007 at 8:29 am
hm PK, i wish to point just 2 things,
online trading is quite easy just b’cos of new banks, there is just no need to step into bank and put cheques for collection. a/c is credited with just a button click.
additionally there is safety issue were we need not carry loads of money to place of shopping b’cos of debt card. so if we are well organized in keeping all a/c information in our pocked diary it is quite useful to have this tech facilities.
Just b’cos we get such facilities ppl are crowding to open a/cs in these banks and so there is sure to be such long queues in metros. All the same, we should not forget the way SBI and such old public sector bank clerks and tellers used to work in such a way to irritate us (coming to seats right at 10 AM going for tea break at 11 AM, just “seat thechufying business” and no friendly approach to customers unless they are priority customers dealing in lakhs) You can see the real scene when +2 and 10th std results are coming and students coming to SBI to take DDs.
Atleast that customer friendliness is there in these private banks, which makes me feel “don’t go for SBI”
February 16th, 2007 at 11:59 am
Good post PK, yeah when technological advances are more, people tend to go into simple primitive methods that are more secure than the 256 bit verisign secure, 1024 bit encrypted SSL connection, blah,blah… and of all, more simple and easy to use. Nice post!!!
February 17th, 2007 at 1:29 am
And we say technology makes things easier for us !!
And yes, small world indeed.
February 17th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
Nice post PK sir..i think this is the right time switch over to private bank sectors..
I opened a NRI account in SBI long back…
i called NRI section and talked to manager for online account..He said he has to request online pin from SBI headoffice in mumbai ….I said fine please go ahead and request my PIN..
Its been a year now still manager says it is coming from mumbai head office.
huh, courier paiyan mumbaila irunthu nadanthu eduthuttu vanthalae inniaram vanthirkanumm…
some what i feel that govt banks ulle pogumpodhu etho collector office and dmv office ikku ulle pora feeling….
February 18th, 2007 at 10:56 am
Idhu unga kadhaiya? recently, i pretty much came to the same conclusion after my run-ins with ICICI.
February 18th, 2007 at 9:40 pm
hmm…i read ur post about NRI’s which u had written before….i was desperately looking ur email id to mail u and clarify some things….but after reading the comments..i calmed down a bit…hmm..
i think it was a very biased post……and it does tickle and prickle me a bit when i read it….
anyways….just a thought…
peace
February 19th, 2007 at 3:39 am
sree,
Ingey amma is not my amma. son is not me. But it could’ve very well happened
Ravi,
u r spot on!
February 19th, 2007 at 3:41 am
Deepa,
I agree with you!.
But I am of the view just because you provide new features does not mean you sacrifice on ease of use in simple, straightfwd things.
But IMHO thats precisely what these banks have done.
R Prabhu,
as you’ve said ease of use has been sacrificed!
Ramya,
vaanga vaanga:)
February 19th, 2007 at 4:02 am
Balar,
You shud try some of the facilities these so called private sector banks offer!
For eg. You would like to know how these private banks treated their customers whenever there was a dispute with the customers.
For statetrs, try phonebanking in HDFC Bank
Subha,
Serious!
February 19th, 2007 at 8:38 am
I have to say that both the public sector banks and the new age banks have got their own pros and cons. I have dealt with both of them while in India and found the latter to be better initially. But their true face gets uncovered only when there is a dispute. In a nutshell, I feel that the ‘human element’ is missing from the new age banks.
February 19th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
Good post Karthi.. I nearly thought its yours and your amma’s experience.
February 20th, 2007 at 1:01 am
Pk,
not related to the topic…do you have mp3 of the song Yengum Yethilum thamizhosai by Seegazhi Govi?
thanks
February 20th, 2007 at 9:51 am
chakra,
u said it perfectly!
deepak,
danks da
ttm,
let me check
February 21st, 2007 at 10:42 am
hm, thanks for that reply…… atleast blog la…. matumavathu reply panreengalae….
do you recognize me???
February 21st, 2007 at 10:46 am
Deepa
Ahaa, idhu enna vamba pochu! Therilaye?
Makkale manichukonga ba! can u pls tell me more abt u?