Perils of keeping surplus money in bank accounts

Keeping surplus money in the bank account has become risky. Bank employees sometimes target such money to mis-sell products

In the 1970s, Jack, a United States (US) citizen, wanted to marry Anna, a citizen of the Communist Soviet Union. To get approval, Jack was asked to get a document from the US authorities certifying he was not married. This was a clever bureaucratic ploy for rejecting his application. Getting the US authorities to certify a negative fact — that Jack was not married — was an impossible task.

I recalled this story while reading a Mumbai High Court decision requiring a bank to refund Rs 77 lakh that had been debited from a company called PSAPL’s bank