How often have you not thought that it would be great if you had someone take care of all your odd jobs ? the utility bill payments, the picking up of groceries and vegetables from the supermarket, buying stamps at the post office, making the air ticket booking for your long awaited holiday or even taking your dog out for a walk, because you are too busy at work. Now, at least for those of your readers in Bangalore, there is someone who will serve as your handyman and that someone is none other than your bank! Yes, Bank Muscat at Bangalore, where they presently have their only branch in India, offer a service by the brand name Personal Life Manager which in addition to taking care of your banking needs helps you by taking care of all of your errands and odd jobs. It this a case of your bank being your handyman or your handyman becoming your bank? You decide.
Bank Muscat has been in India, more precisely in Bangalore for more than a year now. When they launched their personal banking services in India, they offered customers all services that other banks have been offering of late ? namely, personalized cheque books, free ATM cards, pick up of cheques from your home for deposit and delivery of cash at home. They do offer internet banking too, which is a basic facility that most modern banks in India offer today. There was no way that Bank Muscat could have signed up customers by being more of what other banks in India already were. So, they seem to have hit upon an idea which no other bank in India had though of earlier ? why not offer to help Bank Muscat customers manage their time better by offering handyman services at the customers? doorstep for a low fee every month. This is what Bank Muscat has done over the past one and a half years at Bangalore and I am sure they have attracted and retained hundreds of customers by offering to take off the burden of daily small jobs of customers.
Bank Muscat, as the name suggests, is a bank from the middle-East and has started operations in India through their branch at Infantry Road, Bangalore. The branch is located in a nice building on Infantry Road and once inside you are feel relaxed and comfortable in the plush interiors of the bank. The staff too are extremely courteous and helpful, should you ever need to go to the branch, because Bank Muscat?s motto seems to be make its customers do all banking and other financial transactions from the confines of their homes or offices. The ATM at the branch is presently complemented by ATM?s at two other locations in Bangalore. To sign up for Bank Muscat?s Personal Life Manager, one needs to open a savings account with the bank and pay a nominal fee of Rs.25 per month towards Personal Life services.
Bank Muscat have actually outsourced the entire services of Personal Life Manager to Le Concierge, a leading handyman service provider of Bangalore, who handle all your queries and requests for assistance. The minimum balance requirement to avail of Personal Life Manager services is Rs.1, 000 only. Further, Bank Muscat has the facility whereby the amount in your account in excess of a specified limit (minimum of Rs.10, 000), gets converted to fixed deposits and earns you a higher rate of interest till you withdraw that amount. Personal Life Manager is very useful for payment of utility bills, life insurance premia, deposit of cheques into your account and other financial transactions. Personal Life Manager however is not restricted to financial service transactions alone ? they will do almost any odd job or errand that you need their help for ? taking your dog to a veterinarian, taking someone in your family to a hospital, arranging a birthday party for your child, arranging a taxi for you ? and so many other things that you would like to save time on. The bank charges your account directly for all jobs where the product or service has to be paid for. Otherwise, there are no charges for just submitting bills or depositing cheques or other transactions where no money is to be paid for a product or service in addition to the amount due from you. The other stipulation for availing Personal Life Manager services is that you issue a Bank Muscat cheque, if you are using a cheque for payment, which is understandable and fair. Bank Muscat customers have also been provided free membership of Medybiz.com which is a service provider catering to all your medical needs ? delivering drug prescriptions at your house, helping you submit medical samples and collecting your medical test reports, arranging an ambulance when required and getting you appointments for consulting medical specialists and other medical services. Who would imagine that one would only need to open a bank account and maintain a very low balance of Rs.1000 to then enjoy the services of a handyman who will take your clothes to the laundry, collect them back and deliver them to your home, have your mixie repaired at a repair shop, have your roll of photo film developed and the prints taken and delivered at your home and all the other hundreds of small things that you always thought somebody could take care of, for you, and free you to spend time and work and with your family. Your wishes have come true ? if you are at Bangalore ? you could open an account at Bank Muscat ? have them take care of all your daily small jobs and spend time surfing the net and read and write on mouthshut.com!!!