Customer services at banks remain slack

Neeraj Bagga

Amritsar, May 23

Three years after a mega merger of banks took place with the objective of improving the financial health of banking sector and to provide world class services to customers, customer dealing remains far from satisfactory at local branches of banks.

Account holders of different nationalised banks are irked at the tardy and laid-back pubic services being offered during the current month of filing returns at branches. Shiv Kumar, a retired state government employee, said one has to make rounds of bank branches to avail of even ordinary services like updating pass books, getting statement of account and interest certificates, among others. The reasons normally cited were that the desk printer was not in working condition, pass book printing kiosks were out of order and most of the time, the server was down and there was no internet connectivity.

A retired bank employee Anil Vinayak said the very purpose of appointing Single Window Operators (SWO) was defeated as the customers were asked to approach different counters. He said the staff appointed did not know all the banking services and customers had to visit many counters to get their work done. Banks should open ‘May I help’ counters to address the needs of customers, especially the elderly and women, said Vinayak, adding that courteous staff should be deployed to man the counters.

Since the current period was for filing income tax returns, banks should upgrade their infrastructure to generate documents which were mandatory during the filing of online returns.