Banking Experiences in India
In this post, I’ll review my experience with the various financial services I’ve encountered in Mumbai. Generally, I consider myself well-informed about the financial sector and like to manage my affairs myself. Therefore, I really dislike pushy salespeople peddling inferior products.
Because of point 5 in my previous post, I’m loathe to generalise experiences across firms, but some broad strokes can be applied:
Citibank: If you’re banking globally (and aren’t in the Panama Papers), Citi and HSBC are the two institutions with the largest reach. I chose to consolidate my assets at Citi in the US simply because they were conveniently located near my apartment in NYC. My Citigold status in the US transferred over to India (sort of) which entitled me to a shiny debit card and.. not much else.
Pros: The Citigold brand certainly aims at a ‘high end’ look and feel with their gold debit cards in impressive boxes (opening one feels like an iPhone unboxing). This is continued in the form of offers like unlimited gold services, free movie tickets and spa services.
Cons: Unfortunately, this premium feel breaks down at the service delivery level. Due to the somewhat limited variety of services they provide, it is possible that they may not be able to fulfil all your requirements, especially outside the most common banking transactions. I’ve had issues sending transfers abroad (cannot transfer money to my own account abroad), getting forex cards, poor FX exchange rates, archaic netbanking systems, slow mobile app and comparatively low interest rates on term deposits. It also seemed to me that a lot of their staff is more trained for commercial services than personal banking services.
I’d suggest Citi if you’re at least a couple of notches above me on the net-worth scale (multiple crores invested with them) so you’re being serviced by a more experienced team, you have a prior banking relationship with them or if you’re running a business that requires their global reach and expertise.
HDFC Bank: It’s India’s largest bank by assets under management and a massive favourite among investors for their steady growth. They also seem to be the most popular bank for most of my acquaintances and they seem to have the widest range of products so chances are that you will run across them at some point in your financial journey.
Pros: They seem to have every service you could ever require from a bank and I’ve always walked out of their branches (see point 4 here) having had my minimum requirements met — their foreign exchange services have proven especially useful to me on multiple occasions. Their relationship managers (RMs)are also some of the least pushy I’ve experienced and generally quite useful in getting your job done.
Cons: Perhaps its just me, but I’ve had some exceptionally poor experiences with these folks. It took me three months, a dozen emails, a twitter mention (and two separate applications with the good folks at BankBazaar </sarcasm>) to get them to give me a credit card. I’d had my account for more than a year before my RM reached out to me (I’m a ‘premium customer’, btw). I’m still awaiting cashback offers that were supposed to have been credited 2 months ago.
For me, HDFC is the TINA (there is no alternative). They’re worth maintaining atleast a cursory relationship with just in case you require a service that only they are able to provide. Their wide network of branches and ATMs is also very useful.
State Bank of India: Despite the bad press surrounding PSBs, I’ve personally found SBI employees to be the friendliest and most useful during my stint in Mumbai. Their new ‘inTouch’ branches are an attempt to rebrand the bank and, in my experience, they’re doing the job.
My accounts are located in my hometown halfway across the country. Despite this, the employees at my local branch have always been delighted to help. Even though many actions required the involvement of my home branch (what even is the point of the Core Banking System?), they’ve always been super helpful in walking me through the process — often calling up their superiors when they were unclear about the process.
The great experiences aren’t just limited to Mumbai. On a visit back home, the branch manager sat me down on a Saturday and personally helped me fill out multiple forms — he wasn’t pushy at all and didn’t try to cross-sell me any terribly over-priced products.
The net-banking experience is also the most fully-featured and fastest I’ve seen.
Cons: Despite their eagerness to help, their technology frequently fails them. The most common response to any complicated request is ‘you need to approach your home branch’.
Overall, SBI has provided the best banking experience to me. Perhaps this is because they are less motivated by sales targets or maybe because it is because the closest branch to me is fairly empty whenever I’ve walked in. Or maybe, its because the image of public sector banks is unfairly maligned.
Overall, my interactions with banks in Mumbai for anything out of the ordinary has been less than stellar but I’ve generally been able to accomplish the task I set out to perform. Its just taken multiple calls, emails and photocopies of documents.
As a general strategy, I try avoid any human interactions for any of my banking needs. I use the netbanking or automated systems extensively and only use the relationship managers when I have a complex need. This helps avoids the need to wade through offers of whatever is the cross-sold product-du-jour.
The relationship aspect of retail-premium services is quite lacking, especially in comparison to similar services in East and South-East Asia where banks try to cultivate relationships with younger clients in anticipation of future business. I hope that as their clients become more discerning, these services will start to differentiate themselves through the personalisation of their services and move away from these cookie-cutter offerings.
After sorting your financial position, you might want some housing tips here. Alternatively, take a look at the entire series.
Disclaimer: These are my subjective anecdotal experiences with premium banking services in Mumbai. All opinions are my own and are not intended to be authoritative descriptions of the services provided. Please do your own research before availing services described here.
