The Hindu Business Line : The operative word...

I had stashed some cash in an account with a prominent foreign bank for the proverbial rainy day. Since the weather was kind and the rainy day stayed away, I did not use the account for quite a while.

Then one day it rained and I issued a cheque to the guy who gave me an umbrella, so to speak; the bank refused to pay and the next day found me sitting in front of a "customer relationship officer", who somehow managed to wear a smug expression and a customer-friendly smile at the same time.

"Let me check," said she, with the air of one who had got to the crux of the problem. Soon a frown replaced the smug look when she saw that there was enough money in the account to cover the cheque. A few taps on the keyboard later, the smug expression was right back. "Ah!" she said, "your account has become inoperative!"

"What's that?"

"There were no operations on your account for a whole year, so we had to transfer it to inoperative accounts," she explained. "Reserve Bank rules," she added with an air of finality, confident that the mention of the central bank would shut me up.

I knew that the idea was to prevent fraudulent withdrawals in the customer's interest; people have been known to produce cheques drawn on accounts whose owners had long passed on. However, I thought it only fair that the bank should have kept me informed.

The officer however put the blame squarely on my shoulders. "You could have withdrawn at least five rupees once, just to keep the account active," she said.

"I keep money in this account to meet emergency needs," I countered, "and I was never in an emergency where I needed a five rupee note." "That's ok," she said, "If you didn't need the five rupees, you could have deposited it as soon as you withdrew it."

"But then you would have to process two transactions for nothing. I saved you some unnecessary work."

"We are a customer oriented bank and you are a valued customer," she replied, "our staff will be more than happy to process two transactions for you."

"If I am a valued customer, why do you want me to spend time, energy and petrol driving to your bank for just those two five-rupee transactions?"

"You don't have to drive to our bank; you could have used the ATM, if you had cared to apply for an ATM card." A hurt look accompanied the last statement; I had let my bank down in more ways than one!

I dropped the idea of telling her that as the nearest ATM was the one located in the branch premises, I would still need to spend the same time and money for the five-rupee transactions, which had now become so important in my asset management plans.

"You could have telephoned and warned me that my account was becoming inoperative," I said.

"We could have done that, but... " her voice trailed off. I guess she knows that their phone lines are needed for more important things like calling me and other valued customers to ask if we wanted a credit card or a personal loan or something equally profitable for the bank.

Anyway, now I needed to make my account operative again. "Of course, we can do it," she said, "You only have to produce identification, like your passport or driving licence."

"Why?"

"So we can be sure that you are indeed you. You don't want someone else walking off with your money, do you?"

"But you know who I am. You have known me for decades. My signature and photograph are in your records."

"Yes they are, but we can't be too careful. You are a valued customer and it's our duty to protect your money."

Two visits later my account was made operative and, valued customer that I was, I was debited a not so small amount for the service. With this debit (I wonder if it qualifies as an "operation") the balance in my account dipped marginally below the required minimum, which in turn led to further charges and periodic debits. When I looked at my bank statement a year or so later, quite a bit of the money had disappeared. But that's another story.

(The author is former Deputy Controller, RBI and Chennai-based forex consultant. He can be reached at pyes@vsnl.com)

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