I have been using SBI from the days in which there was no computerised banking. Then there were small passbooks with plastic covers which could easily be kept in pocket without the book bending and the teller would enter the details in both the passbook and their ledgers and the time taken for withdrawals/deposits were at the most 5 minutes in the queue and 1 minute for the actual transaction even on the most busy days like Monday.
Then they introduced computers. This brought along with it the ugly long passbooks which easily bend in the pocket of the pants or stands up like a sore thumb in the pocket of the shirt. In those days I think the computers were connected to a small local network inside the branch only.
I think they used a program that ran on dos (or whatever operating system they used) without a lot of graphics and all. That program was pretty efficient and transactions were done very quickly and the passbooks were updated along with the transaction.
Then they started ATM’s. Customers were encouraged to apply for ATM cards. In those days ATM’s were very few in number. But there were some drawbacks. Once a friend of mine got a soiled and torn 500 rupee note which he could not use anywhere. He had to go all the way to his SBI branch to exchange the torn note for a new note. The brochure on the SBI ATM mentioned something about being the withdrawer being able to fix the denomination which he wants for the money withdrawn from the ATM. But somehow I have not seen such a menu in the SBI ATM’s here.
Now for the past few months SBI have started using something called centralised core banking. They also started to use some new bloated software with a lot of menus. Once this started the service has deteriorated very rapidly. Now long queues build up in front of the teller counter and it takes an average of one hour (waiting in the queue) to complete a simple transaction. Each and every transaction is processed in some centralised server in Bombay or some other faroff place. The connections fail very very often and all transactions come to a standstill. Some tellers accept deposits even when there is no connection with the central server. But they will not allow withdrawals. The SBI ATM’s also show some error message during this time.
When there were floods in Bombay all the banking transactions were stopped in the SBI branches here for one or two days.
Even when the connection is there, the transactions are very slow. Earlier the passbooks could be updated with each transaction but nowadays they give you a receipt for deposits and ask you to come on some other day to update the passbook. When you go to deposit some cheque or draft into your account, they ask you to put the draft along with the deposit slip into some box and you have to leave without even a receipt.
I hope that SBI will show some wisdom and return to their old efficient ways.
Thank you for reading.
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