Banking is close to my heart.The reason for this is that my father worked in a bank all his life.He retired as general manager of SBI.
But when I started my own business I had to make a choice.The nearest bank was not SBI.Since then, SBI has opened a branch which is walking distance from both my residence & office.Indeed the first reason for choosing a bank, any bank is that it should be close by.
If the bank is far a lot of time is lost commuting to and from the bank since you generally need to visit the bank often.In India there is not much to choose from in banks.The public sector banks have more educated employees but these people are rude and often the bank itself does not treat the customers with the respect they surely deserve.The private banks are more customer-oriented but they are focussed on the higher end of the banking spectrum.Middle-class people like us do not know what to do.We are better perhaps than the unbanked man-on-the-street but worse than the sugar daddys with lots of cash.We are forced to opt for the nationalised banks as their charges are lower.
But the service is not satisfactory.Even the clerks talk down to us acting as if they are doing a favour.Indeed I have been to private banks too.The employees there are very rude too.But these banks have a more open policy towards customers with high value deposits.I have not taken a bank loan so far.I guess these bank guys create more trouble for borrowers too.