Financial Literacy

I started my career in banking in 2003. I was a finance marketing dual specialisation MBA graduate with dreams in my eyes and no horizon.

I was recruited with Citigroup and at this insitution I learnt endlessly how to survive and be the best sales person! I can never forget my early days fresh out of college and mostly clueless about the industry.

I met many clients — individuals with salaries and EMIs, businessmen struggling to undrestand the new ways of banking with private banks, and enterpreneurs looking forward to asset products of the bank to build thier businesses.

What i never learnt but always knew would be a huge thing was the small financing, banking for the masses.

A pecurliar incident brings this interest back to light. My help is struggling to access her money lying in her savings account because Aadhar is not updated although she has submitted the docoments.

I offered to help since I am recovering from a fracture and frankly could use the distraction! So, we started on this interesting journey with a nationalised bank.

What I have learnt in the past 3 weeks is as follows:

1. Rural branches have 1 landline number which has not been updated on the database of the customer care center of the nationalised bank. They insist on sending me an invalid number of not 1 but 3 different branches!
2. IVR menus in Hindi are still not understood by the layman and often uneducated labor community who have been brounght into the banking fold but are not literate to understand their way through the existing systems
3. Customer care email ids are standard template replies that most often do NOT respond to the specific query sent.
4. I cannot call on the helpline and speak on behalf of my house help since she is the account holder with her husband. He doesn’t work for me and I have not resorted to calling him home and helping him through the IVR as well as speaking to the executive ont he other end of the line.
5. No branch staff is willing to speak to them since this query is too msall and this client base is only a cost center instead of a proftable client that they can cross ell to!
6. The customer management system links are brilliant for registering complaints but mostly have network/ server errors and have not been able to show me the updated status for my complaint ticket number.

So, in conclusion, she and I are both trying to find a solution in the age of digital banking and Aadhar cards, and mobile banking. Everything that this nationalised bank claims it does for it’s customers, here’s a case in point to reflect how handicapped this consumer is through the existing systems that they have!

God knows how they make ends meet with daily challenges of finding work and living a life!