This time I had to do it. Having gone to Kolkata with the primary objective of getting a lot of pending paperwork done, I had little option other than visiting that bank branch I had been avoiding for months. That public sector bank (PSB) branch in the heart of south Kolkata always depressed me, with its dark, forbidding interiors, walls with the paint peeling off and often rude staff at the counters. But I had stuck to the bank only because of nostalgia, since my parents were account holders at the branch for ages and conducted all their transactions there.
Before the arrival of bancassurance, cross-selling and new generation private banks, I?d often see my father get out of his Ambassador, get into that collapsible gate-clad doorway of the branch and wait endlessly for his requirements to be attended to, while some staffers chatted away about the latest football match. Later, when I lived and worked in Kolkata, I?d myself wait for my turn, with a silly token in hand, at the cash counter or to get my queries on the state of our fixed deposits answered.
Doesn?t matter, I told myself: this time I?ll go. The work is far more important. But what awaited me was an entirely new world. Was this the same depressing bank branch? Had someone given it a fresh coat of paint in more ways than one? Bright lights and equally bright, freshly painted interiors gave me the first pleasant surprise. The entire furniture at the branch had been changed with the rickety chairs and tables making way for swanky cabinets and swivel chairs. And most importantly, the tables were adorned with computers! Computers? At this branch? This was nothing short of a revolution.
All the departments requiring direct interface with customers had been moved to the ground floor to enable easier access. Earlier, we?d have to rush from ground to first floor and back to get parts of our work done. Boards on customer care were prominently placed on the walls ? the change was palpable.
I approached the FD counter with apprehension. How long would I have to wait? In a jiffy, the man at the counter explained to me what the status was, and answered my queries with a smiling face. The bank statement on interest earned for filing of tax returns? No problem, said another, before getting me a printout, putting the seal on it and endorsing it with his signature. The status of my parents? old locker? Once again, addressed in less than five minutes. Even an ATM card was available, they said. But since the technological changes were still taking place, it wasn?t available at this particular branch just yet. Within 20 minutes, I had attended to all my pending work. Times had, indeed, changed. And if this branch could do it, any bank in this country could.
More and more banks of the kind I dreaded to bank with are undergoing this change these days. And as once-militant trade unions begin to realise the cold truth ? that the employees will survive only if the bank does ? their resistance is increasingly turning into cooperation. This is the story of most PSBs these days. And the fact that Kolkata, the bastion of the bank trade union movement, is witnessing these changes in a bank known for breeding the fieriest trade unionists, is proof enough for me.
The latest RBI Report on Trend and Progress of Banking in India, coinciding with ten years of banking reform, also takes note of improving efficiencies. ?The increasing trend in efficiency has been fairly uniform, irrespective of the ownership pattern,? the RBI says. ?..The analysis also reveals that PSBs and private sector banks in India did not differ significantly in terms of their efficiency measures.?
And the RBI?s latest move of asking banks to appoint ad hoc committees on procedures and performance audit on public services rendered by banks will only quicken this change. These committees would look into simplification of procedures and practices with a view to safeguarding the interests of the common customer. But most of all, it?s a change in mindset that is sweeping through those dark corridors of the old world PSB. A change that is now irreversible.