Why shouldn't the public banks close down?
We are witnessing a lot of public sector/nationalised banks are either collapsing or merging with other banks just to survive. I was also very confused as to why such things are happening but recently I had a first hand experience which gave me a good insight as to why the banks are on the verge of extinction and to a large extent the bank employees and their style of working is responsible and NPAs & other reasons come later.I had opened a bank account in a public sector bank and it took me 5 visits to get it done. Yes, the documentation and speed of working was faster than speed of light!.
Now comes an even better part, I went to the bank to collect my debit card, cheque book and passbook. I was issued a passbook and then I asked for debit card and cheque book. I was again asked to fill a seperate form for debit card and cheque book. I obliged and filled the same. I was asked to come a day later. Now, this was my 6th visit. I reached there the next day and asked for debit card and cheque book. I was told to wait a little and this little was exact 1 hour. I was issued a debit card and then I asked for cheque book also. I was told to come after 12 to 15 days. I said I do not need a personalised cheque book but still for that also I will have to wait for 2 weeks.
The amount of time I waited there and noticed their way of working gave me a very clear image as to why these banks are failing. Not only their style of working is slower than snail but also they do not value the time of their customers. This is my first experience with a public sector bank in 25 years and the time I spent waiting to get the account opened and collect the cards and other details gave me enough time to analyse why these banks are slowly but surely failing.
I may be short-sighted in my observation but not wrong in what I have seen. Many other factors are responsible for their failure and would like members to share their experience.