Our desperate need for better banking

Bankers rule us. If you don’t believe me, think about the hoops you are made to run through whenever you need a product or service, and how willingly you do it because you are trained to expect nothing better. Resentation pic

One of my more annoying habits is spending time looking at customer complaint forums online. I do this not because the pain experienced by other people brings me joy, but because it serves as such a great indicator of the million things that can, and do, go wrong around us on a regular basis. I do it because it serves as a reminder that for every politician speaking about how we are now a global power, there are everyday realities slapping us in the face to remind us that we are still a third-world country. It is a reminder of how helpless we really are.

Complaints against banks are among the most heartbreaking things to read on these sites because one cannot possibly imagine the plight of people who can't read or write trying to gain access to much-needed money that legally belongs to them. I shudder to think about what happens outside the borders of urban India, in that vast hinterland where regional bank managers sit in judgment on the lives and incomes of millions of workers, deciding who can be paid, and when. If this sounds like fantasy, you probably haven't stepped out of your vehicle in a while.

I have spent the better half of this year dealing with one of India's largest banks, trying to get them to do what they are legally required to, and failing to obtain even a modicum of decent customer service. I have wasted hours speaking to a person they have amusingly designated as my ‘relationship manager', emailed everyone from the branch manager to a regional ‘grievance redressal officer', and screamed at my desktop in frustration as I have watched my money remain in limbo. I can speak to a lawyer, of course, and fully intend to, but the whole exercise has been eye-opening because I think about those who simply don't have recourse to the legal options I do.

My ordeal began with a simple enough request but morphed very quickly into a series of forms that needed to be filled, then attested, then changed and sent again. There were further demands made for KYC documents that had already been submitted, new forms that needed to be filled out because someone at another department forgot to ask for them earlier, and signed declarations to prove that the money was mine even though the bank knew exactly where it had all come from. I did it all, obviously, because I had no choice, but I kept trying to make sense of why the bank made it so easy to get money into its system, and so incredibly hard for a customer to get it out. Why could I open an account online if I chose to, but not close that account unless I made a trip to the branch where it had been opened? Who made these rules, and what purpose did they serve except to help the bank and harass the customer?

There are examples of unnecessary bureaucracy everywhere if we stop to examine them. We have governments that work to benefit corporations and financial entities, not the people they are elected to represent.

We have no one looking out for us because everyone in power is usually a crony propped up by faceless multinationals. If that sounds like a conspiracy, ask yourself why a bank will send a collection agent to your apartment if you miss EMI payments of a few thousand rupees, but how some individuals manage to borrow a few hundred crores with ease and abscond without too much of a hassle.

Bankers rule us. If you don't believe me, think about the hoops you are made to run through whenever you need a product or service, and how willingly you do it because you are trained to expect nothing better. Look at what your bank earns from the money you place with it, and what hidden charges and mysterious fees you pay for every transaction. Look at statements declaring their annual profits. Ask yourself how an organisation that is just supposed to safeguard your money makes more and more from you each year while offering you the same poor level of service for decades.

We have a tendency to place bankers on pedestals, and to treat their jobs as respectable instead of predatory. We don't acknowledge that they cause harm to millions who have no access to redressal. They do it because they know they can get away with it, and that needs to change.

When he isn't ranting about all things Mumbai, Lindsay Pereira can be almost sweet. He tweets @lindsaypereira

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The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper