Sep 2017 update 2
How inaccurate a bank statement can become?
I already mentioned before that sometimes there is a duplicate entry for same transaction. An issue reported about a year back, followed up and given up. Bank did nothing about it.
This month I found even more horrible thing. The total of debit column was NOT matching with the actual total of debit manually calculated! Can a bank’s IT be that buggy?
Further, I found that, the dates in the online statement CHANGE. If I did a transaction on a certain date and I check it online, and then I see the statement at the end of the month, the dates of the transaction are found changed, sometimes as much as by a week!
Sep 2017 update 1
Fed up of the so called "mahasecure" blocking access to internet banking portal every now and then and nobody listening regarding correcting it, I sought to move my PPF account.
To my shock, the bank manager has created his own rule "PPF account cannot be transferred".
Have to teach a lesson to these morons. I am filing a complaint with NSI and RBI for bank’s outrageous stand.
PPF scheme is run by Govt of India and scheme documents clearly say the account can be transferred. These morons can’t apply their own rules.
Will update this write up on whatever happens to the complaint.
July 2017 Update2
Wish to add a couple more blunders of their IT
One fine day they stopped showing "Statement of Account" for one of my accounts. Fistly convincing them that this is an issue was a big trouble. Later on after about a couple of months of follow up they fixed it and I was able to view the statement.
On one occasion, in statement of accounts, 1 transaction was shown twice causing total chaos with calculations before realizing it was bank’s statement that was faulty. This issue is already several months old and till date there is no corrective action taken on it. The branch people have stopped even responding to reminders on this(sent once in a month, not that I am chasing them too frequently). Customer service people anyway don’t respond to anything.
Can such a core functionality like statement of account be taken so lightly by a bank?
July 2017 Update1
I am trying to answer questions raised by cutedoggie.
0) And what in the world is UPI?
Unified Payment Interface. It can and to an extent is revolutionzing the payment landscape in India. Its important for consumers to know about this - as much as about internet or mobile banking. I’d urge you to search more on this.
1) What about customer experience and service other than that?
About technlogy bits(which constitute major part of customer experience today) I already wrote that it’s not really up to the mark. In matters where you have to deal with staff, I already mentioned there are good people, they talk well etc. In fact I also mentioned, that’s why I feel sad to rate this bank low.
2) What about bank staff? What about the management?
About staff I mentioned above. I have no idea about management, not of any bank for that matter. They don’t matter to me directly as a consumer. I have no way or interest to judge how good or bad they are.
3) What are the savings and investment plans on offer?
There is nothing to highlight specially. It’s same as any other peer bank - FDs, various tiers of savings and current accounts etc.
4) How responsive are they, in general?
Customer service - 0 response, even after several reminders.
People at the branch - they talk well etc. But if your issue pertains to their IT infrastructure, they can’t help much.
5) How is the cohesion between different branches of the same bank?
Poor. I happen to have a/c with 2 branches and nearly for every matter they want you to go to respective branch only.
6) What are the other advantages / disadvantages of banking with this bank?
It really depends on individuals. E.g. for someone location may be an advantage, for someone a particular banking account type might be suitable etc.
7) How accessible is the bank? Is there only one branch or several?
Several in most cities where it has presence.
8) Is it a known bank? OR relatively unknown?
By size it falls within top 10 nationalized banks.
9) Some history might also be welcome.
I am not too inclined to read or write about history. Review should be based on quality of what they offer today. But if you are keen it’s available on wikipedia etc.
July 2017
For the first time I feel sad, rather than angry, when rating someone so low. To be honest I liked this bank, its people. They talk far far better than its elder arrogant monster siblings like SBI.
However IT is letting this bank down.
About 1 or 2 years back, there was a fad of stopping internet banking completely and giving this stupid application called "MahaSecure" that must be installed on client computer - an idea of IT of the 80s or 90s.
Probably that was an idea of some overambitious executive within the bank who was sufficiently influential to have his/her way to impose this stupidity on all customers.
It took a lot of fight, escalations, giving undertakings about security etc. to make them restore internet banking.
May be many customers protested and later the wisdom prevailed and this idea was dropped and net banking was restored for all.
However the bank virtually committed suicide by replacing old IT system with a new one and like happens when you "fix what isn’t broken", the new IT system totally spoiled an otherwise decent user experience.
The new(by now more than a year old) IT system has world’s most stupid session management. If you do not close your session by hitting log out, your session remains active and for hours(and sometimes for inexplicable reasons for days) you can be locked out of your account. The message just says "try after some time" and in certain instance that happened to me, it kept saying so for several days.
For some inexplicable reasons even on mobile banking app transactions are denied saying "Try again later", and this goes on for days.
Some of the practices of the bank like fund transfer limits, inability to pay to a payee for 24 hours are also draconian that make it unsuited for today’s fast age.
The bank supported UPI quite early, however getting it work is a pain. Funny things happen with your "MPIN". It would say "access denied", but if you try to change the PIN it would accept the PIN that it just rejected.
There have also been instances of some other account holder’s transaction SMSes reaching on my mobile.(That’s not funny, as mine might be going to someone else as well!). In this aspect it certainly matched its monster sibling SBI.(I had similar instance with SBI also, which I have mentioned in my SBI review.)
Basically, it’s not possible to list every IT issue. In summary, this bank’s IT simply sucks and is far from being contemporary.
Worse is you are on your own when such issue occurs. The so called mahaconnect email id, branch email does not respond to any mail. Even appellate is sleeping and does not respond to emails. Phone banking puts you on hold and goes to sleep.
There is no redressal of any kind if you land into an IT issue.
Decided to move on. Just opened account with new age digital bank - DBS bank. Watch out my review of DBS.