Relationship banking

With reference to ‘Don’t leave banking to machines’ ( Business Line , May 25), banking is a business based on trust and relationship. Machines have no doubt increased customers’ delight. But the relationship part has taken a dent. The new generation banks outsource many of their core jobs and the right hand doesn’t know what the left does. As rightly said, jobs are outsourced to cut costs on technology and manpower.

For the employees also, the machines are a boon as they are saved of monotonous manual work. Reliance on KYC is on account of the widening gap in the relationship. With alternative channels of delivery, most customers do not visit the bank and the staff are not familiar with their customers. Unlike in the previous days when cheques were passed after seeing the customer, without referring to a specimen signature, today the cheques are passed elsewhere without reaching the branches. Efficiency has improved due to mechanisation but banks should be careful not to lose the relationship thread.

S. Veeraraghavan

Madurai

Back on track

This refers to “Bring Railways on track” ( Business Line , May 24). . Just as there is corruption in other government departments, so too in Indian Railways (IR). But in the last 15 years, when IR was controlled by a political party other than the Congress, things have worsened. The appointment of hundreds of employees in IR was done without proper scrutiny. If some 500 employees are appointed when not required, the financial burden is much bigger than the corruption detected in the appointment of members of the Railway Board. It is high time IR is run as a pure commercial undertaking like BSNL. IRC, if managed professionally, would be able to do raise funds for modernisation and expansion.

Narendra M. Apte

Pune

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