I would like to share with you one of the worst banking experience I have had. It is with ICICI Bank. I am an NRI working in Denmark and as per the ICICI Bank website, I transferred 10, 000 Danish Kroners to an account in Danske Bank, Denmark. This account is supposedly operated by ICICI who collect the money and transfer them into the Indian accounts of the respective people. It is nearly 2 months and I am yet to get the money into my Indian account (626201077225).
Because I too have a local bank account with Danske Bank, I did a normal account-to-account transfer. Now ICICI Bank asked me to ask my local bank to send a SWIFT message. When I approached the local bank, they said that SWIFT messages are only for wire-transfers and not for account-to-account transfers within the same bank. But ICICI refuses to acknowledge this simple fact. They acknowledge that they have received the money and know it is from me but still won’t transfer the money. They just keep on insisting on this SWIFT message which I repeatedly told them that the local bank won’t give.
This message is to warn all people who remit money through ICICI Bank. They must realise that when they transfer money into an account operated by ICICI, they are at the mercy of the ICICI. Even if they want to get back the money, they cannot unless ICICI decides to give it back because they have willingly given the money through online transfer. I hope you will carry this incident on your webiste.
I think the only hope I have is the Banking Ombudsman Scheme started on 1st January 2006 by the RBI. https://rbi.org.in/Scripts/bs_viewcontent.aspx?Id=159