| Time was when your money was entrusted to a bank manager who showed his appreciation of your confidence by responding to your problems with attentive courtesy and helpful advice. Managers have given way now to Customer Service Officers whose designation suggests a variant of the old gag that the Indian Civil Service was neither Indian nor civil nor a service. |
| Banks are too engrossed in offshore activities, futures, venture capital and high finance in general to bother with customers who are tossed between the devil of the Customer Services Enquiries (CSEs) and the deep of the ATM. |
| A Singapore joke has it that word spread in Bangladesh that money gushed out if one touched the wall at Tekka Market in the heart of Little India, the Sunday gathering place for thousands of Bangladeshi workers, where there is a popular post office bank ATM. It works. Here, a leading foreign bank's ATM swallowed up my card and refused to disgorge it. |
| Another spat out the card and transaction advice but not the money. I could see the wad of notes shyly peeping out from under the partially raised metal cover but emerge it would not. Nevertheless, the advice said my account had been debited. |
| CSE is truly formidable. When I dialled the number a sugary recorded voice oozed a welcome and requested me to "press the star key to continue". Was it conceivable, I wondered, that I would not continue? That I had called only to hear that treacly welcome? Anyone who takes the trouble to call has something on his or her mind. |
| That something demands more than a recorded swagatam. Surviving the welcome, I pressed the star key, listened to Sugary trot out the menu in dulcet tones, and felt like the lowest of the low in the banking caste hierarchy. |
| No, I was not a premium customer. No, I was not the proud owner of a Gold Credit Card. No, I did not have a business inquiry. No, I did not have a telephone banking number. I was just a regular customer with a simple question. I wanted the chequebook I ordered six weeks ago. |
| According to the bank there was no need even to order, for an automatic replacement was promised when I reached a certain page. Since no replacement arrived, I filled in the requisition slip for my peon to collect a new book. They sent him away, saying it would be sent in five days. |
| Since then, utter silence. On inquiry, the bank said a chequebook had been despatched a month ago. Despatched maybe, but not received, I pleaded. Call CSE, they replied. I did, hanging with hope at the end of the telephone as Sugary gushed away. |
| The tone changed suddenly when I admitted to my lowly status in the banking hierarchy. Sugary vanished; Sharp and Snappy took over. The new voice did not plead. |
| "Please hold on and a Customer Service Officer will be with you shortly," it snapped. I held on "" what else could I do? "" listening to Christmas carols and catchy Bollywood jingles. Sharp and Snappy cut in from time to time, ordering me to hang on until a CSO was free. |
| Once it even condescended to say "" not very convincingly "" that my call was important to them. But the intervals between these vocal interventions grew longer. Finally, Sharp and Snappy ordered me to try later. They had accommodated me long enough. There was a click and the line went dead. |
| I went through the rigmarole three times. I listened to Sugary, then Sharp and Snappy. I pressed all the buttons, waited as instructed, and was duly cut off each time. CSOs are busy bees without time for the likes of me. |
| Perhaps, one day I will make it to the end. Perhaps, unlike Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, I will discover a real flesh and blood banker who cares for customers, and not just a gramophone, at the end of the Yellow Brick Road. |
| Meanwhile, this is India. Britain, Honolulu and Singapore notwithstanding, I am Indian. My third cousin's second cousin's son-in-law's nephew is a senior officer in another branch. |
| As mindful of family obligations as I am, he never fails to rise to the occasion when I call his unlisted direct line. He never tells me what he does and I never ask. But minions seem to fly at a flutter of his eyelashes. |
| No recorded voices but flesh and blood bankers call me with profuse apologies and offers of help. My chequebook with my name ready printed is delivered in half an hour. My ATM card is returned. The wrong debit is immediately offset. |
| Unfortunately, I do not have an abundance of third cousin's second cousin's son-in-law's nephews to help out when other banks, foreign and nationalised, shortchange me over interest, bungle TDS certificates and bounce cheques. |
| Nor can I afford the other great Indian solution. Ours is the world's most competitive market economy. One can buy all the services that backward American, British and Singaporean socialists take for granted and provide for free. There's a price tag on everything here. |
| But even with money and connections, I would prefer the professionalism of the friendly old-fashioned manager who called me because he wouldn't dishonour a cheque for Rs 200 more than my credit balance. He sustained confidence in banking. I miss him. |
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