BANKING IN INDIA- A VIEW FROM BOTH SIDES - THE ETHMOS PERSPECTIVE

To know about the structure or policies of Banking in India, there are and number of books available in the Market or over the Internet. But we here at Ethmos show the view, which may seem general but gives the real picture of the practices happening in India. (Note: The motto is not only to discuss about the change to happen but make the changes happen.)

  A.  From Public point of view:

Public can be an individual, a family, a firm or any entity who uses the services of banking industry. The Journey or relation of banks with public mostly starts with the opening of an account through which s/he utilizes the multiple services of banking. But in practice when we as a public enter in a bank, particularly a public sector bank, we hardly get to know from where to start, as everything seems to be on a different planet and the view will be like- A guard sitting at the entrance who is the most frustrated man in Bank who teaches the people banking in his own way (some exceptions are there who really help public in need) as public feel more secure to ask the security guard rather than any other employee of the bank.

 Counter interactions- What we have heard or read in books or newspaper that in PSU’s our work will be done at the single counter (SWO-Concept) but in reality first we have to win the position by standing in a queue. After the initial battle only 25% chances are there that our work is done. We will be shown next window for our work to be done. It will make us think whether we really need the service of bank by wasting so much of time that to in today’s tech savvy world. And overall we invest our own money and time in banks, and in return we get the harsh language of the bankers along with the half knowledge what we have consumed. Even if we have availed any facility from bank we are not sure if we can utilize it 100%. These are the just initial encounters faced by our more than 100crore public in Banks.

Managerial experience to Public: Frankly speaking, Bank managers are not less than any of the God in our country. It will be a rare time for public that he can interact with the Manager in a bank. As first thing he has to find out, where is the Bank Manager. When he finds the Lord of Bank Branch He is being treated as he has made a crime by entering in the cabin and having interactions with him. Then finally if he is in mood our problem will be solved but if he is in bad mood then even 100 coconuts or number of rounds are not enough to make our work done. But even after this sort of humiliation, we as a public have to respect Bank manager and Have to say “Thank you sir, I will be back”.

(These are the experiences people in India faces at the initial stages as they are not aware of their own rights even at place like Bank. But when we are used to it, we learn too many things to get our work done.)

B.  From Bankers point of view:

Banker: Banker is an individual who provides the banking service to the public through banking channel directly or indirectly. When an individual gets selected in Bank, he feels on top of the world. (Which won’t last too long). When he is being trained what he has to do in banks, he thinks that he is being chosen for a noble cause. But when the actual practice of Banking gets started everything changes. The change starts form the timing to report at the branches. (Posting of bankers is more than an issue, so it is being skipped) He has to open the bank much before the actual working hour’s starts. On an average, at least before 45 minutes of actual working hours. He has to look after the things which are kept at the desk as unfinished tasks a day before. (In banking unfinished tasks are more compared to the finished tasks due to staff shortage or unskilled staff, which will not be understandable by A general public. So after arranging all the things neatly and getting to know what he has to do today, multitasking is obligatory as he has to do the tasks of at least two people. So, the beautiful journey starts.

Customer Interaction & other: From a banker’s point of view, every person who consumes banking service is a customer. And as per the old saying

“Customers are god!” So, we have to respect the customer as foremost thing along with providing a better service. When the banker starts the working hours by providing the service, he never thinks that he has to do the repeated task which he is being doing since many days or months. He just kept on doing things, Even he is not being diverted by the various chaos some customer makes against him. It didn’t fail him to provide the banking service to the others. As there are many things from a banker’s point of view which can be completed by using common sense, but as some of the smart customers knows the rights of a customer, deliberately neglecting their responsibilities kept on asking the same question number of times. He thinks that it’s the banker’s duty to please the customer as he wants. (Though there is difference between customer satisfaction and pleasing customer). After a long duration of working hours get finished, there are still n number of tasks are waiting for a banker which will take again at least 1 and half hour more. Means doing the multiple tasks, managing minimum 100 customers and working nearly about 9 hours in a day a banker will spend remaining 3-5 hours to his beloved family.

Our View: As we have seen the Indian banking from both customers and bankers point of view. Though there are too many parts still to be covered, we herewith summarise the thing by putting a small solution. It’s not necessary that every solution has to be out of the box. Even in this context we just want to make you realise the others point of view, so we can understand the problem in our thinking. As you can observe thing that We have referred both Public and banker as “We” to just express one thing that we all are one, No one is different from the other. Suggestions and comments are most welcome.

Thanking you,

Team Ethmos.

PMJBY and PMSBY - Prime Minister Bima Yojanas - good schemes but poor way of execution through banks - The Ethmos way of looking at things

Our beloved PM is going to launch two grand schemes for the benefit of the general public - namely, Prime Minister Jan Bima Yojana (PMJBY) and Prime Minister Suraksha Bima Yojana (PMSBY), in order to provide insurance cover to the general public. So far so good - the scheme is very much welcome because unlike western countries, the insurance penetration in Bharat (we intentionally call our country as Bharat instead of India because India is a general term given by Britishers to varied tribes of people in different parts of the world while Bharat is the actual name of the great land that we belong to) is very low and around 80% of the populace is uninsured or highly under-insured.

Before giving our Ethmotican views, we would like to briefly describe what these two schemes are actually.  Both the schemes give an individual death cover of Rs. 2 lacs but PMJBY also gives a permanent disability cover as well as death-due-to-any-reason kind of cover for Rs. 2 lacs at a premium of Rs. 330/- plus service tax (which is presently at 12.36%) thus taking the total payable premium at Rs. 371/-.  PMSBY provides accidental death cover of Rs. 2 lacs for only Rs. 12/- plus service tax, i.e. Rs. 13.5/- and permanent disability cover of Rs. 1 lac.  PMJBY covers persons in the age group of 18 to 50 years while PMSBY covers in the range of 18 to 70 years.  There is also Atal Bima Yojana (ABY) which provides pension to the unorganized sector in the age group of 18 to 40 years wherein government contributes a maximum of Rs. 1000/- along with the individual to provide fixed pension to the insured.  So far so great - for starters, the schemes are very good if implemented properly and a large number of our populace can benefit from them.

But the fact remains that even the best plans can go wrong if not implemented properly.  Our government has again chosen their favorite scapegoats for implementing these schemes - they are none other than The Bankers of our country.  Now, the first Ethmotican question that we want to ask is - Why are bankers told to sell insurance when we already have nationalized insurers in our country with a huge army of insurance agents at their disposal?  The answer is very simple as we see it.  All the insurance companies who hire agents pay them a handsome commission which can go up to 40% of the premium they charge from the customers.  But in these low-cost schemes wherein we are charging peanuts from the customers to give them strawberries at the end, how can they share those peanuts with their agents!  Hence, the government chose the easier way - put it on the head of the "lazy bankers" who have no work at all do since all the loan customers in our country are very very good who repay their loans well in time without requiring any followups, all our laws are so strong that bankers can recover the public monies by just calling the call center at any local court and getting online decries, the banks are so full of staffs that majority of the staff are working in the branches as if they are on a vacation to Switzerland and are having an extremely laid back attitude towards their work.  Kudos to our government to have given such a great job to the already jobless salary-wasting bank employees.  Whatever NPA is there in the banking system today (on an average 3%-5% of the banking assets, i.e. loans given by the banks, are NPA - and that is just the official estimate!!) can be recovered in just a few seconds if the bankers so desire but these banker fools are not working hard enough and are not doing any job properly.  Hence, let them at least do this job properly.

We hope you have got the point correctly.  What happens when you give a non-related work to a person sitting in an important chair like management of public money.  Simple - the management aspect goes berserk which results in the mismanagement.  When already the banking industry is reeling under staff crunch, burdening them with this work is definitely going to affect not just the customer service but also asset quality of advanced loans, loan disbursal of fresh loans, giving day-to-day service to regular customers, etc.  Rather than doing this, had the government entrusted this work or better distributed this work to the government insurance companies and hand-twisted them just like they do with the banks, the government would have got its way without much hassle and that too in a smooth manner.

And now the funniest aspect of this scheme.  The scheme will be released by our honorable PM on 9th May 2015 but in the hurry and excitement to get the attention of the PM towards their side, majority of the top officials of the finance ministry as well as the public sector banks want to give a pleasant surprise to our honorable PM by enrolling maximum applications even before the scheme is launched officially.  And now all the branches are buzzing with officials no less than branch managers running helter-skelter in search of beneficiaries on whom they can get stick these policies and get their signatures on the consent-cum-declaration forms since they are given small targets just 2 to 3 inches bigger than Mt. Everest to mobilize only 300 to 1000 applications within 2 days so that our top bankers and government officials can get that million-dollar pat on their back from our honorable PM.

People rushing for the PM schemes...

Our second Ethmotican question - what about us Sir??  We - the general public who come to deposit their monies, taking loans, repaying loans, requiring answers to some queries like our installment dates, needing to print our passbooks, requiring urgent demand drafts for paying our wards' school fees, and much more - please tell us where should we go for all these needs?  Or is our government going to start any new general banking scheme for the bankers so that they are once again reminded of the actual work that they are paid to do?

Your comments - good or bad - are utmost welcome - bad  ones are more welcome because that gives us a chance to improve ourselves and may be learn something new in the process.

Happy Ethmos to all