Going bonkers with bankers

Unlike our Prime Minister or Mr Narayana Murthy, I do not labour for 18 hours a day; in fact, I don’t labour at all — having toiled for 35 years, I have now left it to others to clear out the mess I’ve created during that period. But this doesn’t mean I don’t put in many productive hours every day — for, as the L&T chairman never said: “They also serve who only stand and stare.” Deleting the hours I spend in sleeping, and staring at Neerja, I do work for about four hours every day at my office table, which I picked up at a Delhi chor bazaar just before someone nicked my wallet. But — and here’s my grouse and the trigger for this piece — about two of these hours are spent sorting out issues with my banks.

This constitutes my daily nightmare, of the digital kind. All banks have now gone online and that has its advantages, especially in the matter of withdrawing cash through ATMs, making payments, opening FDs, etc, through net-banking. Beyond these, however, if you have an issue like change of phone number or address, or suspect credit or debit, or closing an account, and need to contact the bank or its manager, or do a KYC, then you need to gird up your loins, prepare for a few frustrating weeks and long for the old days when you could drop in at the branch to have a cup of tea with the Branch Manager while your issue was sorted out in a cordial manner. Not anymore. These days, you have to deal with an anonymous, faceless, algorithmic monster called Customer Service, legal fiction which you are led to believe exists (like God) but actually doesn’t (again, like God).

I have accounts in four banks, having decided to spread the risks when they start collapsing whenever Mr Adani decides to buy Cyprus or St Kitts and move there with his trillions. But, since it’s now quite clear that he is happy to stay in India and buy this country instead, I decided to close two of these accounts before dementia catches up with me and I forget about all of them. I’ve been waging a battle with one of these banks for the last month to close one account. A Speed Post letter to the BM has elicited no acknowledgement — I suspect he is also legal fiction and doesn’t exist. Three emails to Customer Service (“we value our relationship with you”) have elicited three identical responses, saying it can’t be done online and that I should visit the branch with as many papers as I carried to my UPSC interview 50 years ago.

I pointed out that I am a senior citizen and should not be expected to physically go to the branch which is 20 km away: no response from the bot at the other end, but I thought I could hear a snicker from the bank’s URL. The account is still not closed. I think I shall bequeath it in my will to someone I detest, preferably a ‘bhakt’, or some dandy from St Stephen’s College (do I need to tell you that I’m from Hindu College?)

There are other missiles in the armoury of Customer Service which they unleash in the wee hours of the night. One morning you’ll be suddenly informed that your basic savings account has been upgraded to Burgundy or Platinum or Super Value, which requires you to maintain a few lakhs in your account at all times, on pain of penalty charges. In return, you will get your own Relationship Manager, free access to an Indigo airport lounge and a discount on meals at a five-star restaurant. I’ve tried telling them that I can manage my own relationships, thank you, and don’t need help in managing them; that I wouldn’t fly even if God gave me wings; that it makes no sense to have biryani in a hotel where Ms Sitharaman takes 28 per cent of the food off the plate even before I’ve had the first bite and Service Charge takes 15 per cent of what’s left. The algorithms are designed not to take no for an answer.

And then there is the bane of our digital lives — the KYC. Every once in a while we are asked to re-verify our mug shots, fingerprints, addresses and telephone numbers. The public sector banks, those remnants of the dinosaurs, insist that you physically visit their branches to do so, even if you are on the International Space Station with Sunita Williams. (Incidentally, you now have to do this also for your FASTag, gas connection, insurance policies, mutual funds, etc). It doesn’t matter a whit that you’ve had an account with the bank for 40 years, or that it’s a pension account verified by the AG himself, or that you’ve never, ever, defaulted on a loan or a credit card payment, or ever had any dealings with Suresh the Con-man, or Mallya or Choksi or Nirav Modi. While people like these gentlemen are siphoning off thousands of crores from the banks, we cannot touch our own moneys.

One can’t help but feel that we are rushing too fast into wholesale digitalisation without adequately preparing our personnel, processes and culture for it, just like Mr Gadkari with his expressways and Ms Sitharaman with her GST. Sometimes, one longs for the older ways. I recollect my dad, after retirement in Kanpur, used to visit his bank branch two or three times every week, have a gossip session with the BM, get tips on investments, encash a cheque or two over tea and aloo ki tikkis, and return home a satisfied customer. He died of old age, not the effects of dealing with Customer Service and Digital India. Me, I’ll probably die of an embolism caused by a Customer Service algorithm.

I’m considering closing all my bank accounts, withdrawing the funds and going into partnership with my village moneylender; he’s promised me an annual return of 8 per cent (no TDS, of course), which is more than what these banks give. Problem is, he wants me to do a KYC too!

— The writer is a former IAS officer