I am an NRI customer of Kotak Mahindra Bank since about 2 months now. I opened just one NRO savings account.
When I was submitting documents to open the account, I didn’t receive any help and sent documents to the address they provided. Didn’t hear anything from them at all. Suddenly 2 months later I get a call saying they didn’t get my documents, so I sent them again. Then they call me again saying they can arrange free courier pickup, but it is too late for this, I don’t need this anymore since I paid to send the documents again already.
Eventually the account was opened and set up without major problems. I got a free debit card and cheque book even though I never requested it. The debit card has a Verfied by Visa feature which is good and secure for online shopping. I might cancel my HDFC debit card since this one has everything that I need:D
I haven’t dealt much with the customer service reps on the phone, but I did have some troubles with activating Mobile Banking which I wasn’t helped with and had to solve the problem myself.
After I got Mobile Banking working, I find it very convenient and user friendly. The downside to Mobile Banking app is that I cannot send IMPS through it, it always gives me an error. The NetBanking makes up for that and lets me send instant IMPS transactions for free to almost any account in India! I can also send NEFT/RTGS transactions for free and don’t have to wait to activate beneficiary. HDFC has 12 hrs wait and Axis has 24 hours wait, as well as some other limitations, so this is really convenient to not have to wait before sending a first time payment.
FD rates seem to change very often, sometimes even every few days there is a different rate for opening FD. FD opening, liquidating, and maturation process is all pretty smooth.
I had some people I know in India attempt to deposit small amounts of cash to my account, and often have to answer many questions as to where the cash is coming from, or provide the purpose of deposit. This is apparently because the account is NRO account, but I never had this problem with ICICI Bank NRO account. The cash deposits are accepted at least, which is a major advantage over HDFC Bank who outright denies any third party cash deposits. I wish this bank had more branches though, since if someone wants to deposit cash to my account they often have to travel very far. It is not such an issue in bigger cities like Mumbai or Delhi though.