So far so good . Review on Yes Bank

Pleasant and reasonably informed, I knew this sales guy when he used to work for another bank where I was planning to open an account. Carrying on the relationship he was trying to sell me YES bank as a good alternate. What I particularly liked about him was his attitude. My "office" is a single room on the first floor of a building that also houses a mechanic shop and a hair cutting saloon. And here was this guy from a private bank, dressed up in formals with a tie to boot, sweating profusely (no AC) and at no stage did he try to talk down to me or show his discomfort. Anyway for various reasons that I shall come to later, I decided to open an account with these people.

Opening an account ....

with YES bank is as simple as 1,2,3. The only document that was expected of me was a residence proof and a photograph. I had the residence proof with me when this guy landed up, but had (as always) forgotten to keep the photograph ready. No problem - I was asked to stand against the wall, out came a camera phone, "smile pls" - photo done. With that and an assurance that "your acccount will be opened and you will have your customer kit withing 5 working days sir" he left. Two days later, I got an SMS thanking me for the application and that it was being processed. Two working days letter, a courier giving my ATM pin. Of course one cannot do much with an ATM pin if one does not have an ATM card, so I called up support to find out what happened my welcome kit. The support person could not only tell me that it had been dispatched, but she could also give me the docket number and name of the coureir by which they had sent it. Within two more days my welcome kit was with me.

Why I choose YES Bank

There were three things that I was looking at when opening the account - background & stability of the bank, features available and the cost of banking.

YES bank is promoted by seasoned banking professionals who have worked in MNC banks at senior positions. The more important factor for me is that it is backed by a well established multinational bank called RABO bank of Netherlands, so it definitely does not come in the category of the GTBs and other suspect "private" banks.

There were three features that really impressed me.

(1) Cash withdrawal from ANY (mastercard) ATM for free 6 times in a month. Again 6 free balance look ups. ATMs have always been a problem for me. I bank with IDBI bank and even though their ATM is always free, I need to travel long distances to reach one. On the other hand, banks which do have a number of ATMs (eg, ICICI where I used to have an account) are always occupied and you need to wait at least 15-20 minutes to access them. Again I travel in rural areas and my own native place is a small town where you are more likely to find ATMs of smaller/nationalised banks here than the ICICIs or other private banks. Thus the YES bank card solves a lot of problems for me !!!

(2) Home banking: YES bank offers free cash / cheque pickup from home. And the best part is that the cheque is processed on the same day if you are able to call them up before noon.

(3) Money transfer- YES bank provides you with whats called an RTGS facility for money transfer. This facility, which is free at its end, allows you to transfer money to any account in any bank that is signed in to this facility. The transfer is instantaneous.

Features - putting them to test:

Past and bitter experiences have led to me take all claims by banks with a pinch of salt. So I put the claims of YES bank to test:

(1) Cash withdrwal: YES bank activates your ATM when you make your first withdrawal of a minimum Rs.500. So when I got the card I tried it on the vageuest ATM that I could find near my place - a corporation bank ATM. Sure enough, the ATM accepted my card, allowed me to withdraw my money and gave me the correct balance. The only negative was that it did not force me to change my ATM pin as it should have or for that matter did not even give me the option of doing it on my own either. But I guess thats not a very serious issue.

(2) Home banking: I had a cheque to deposit into my account. I filled up the deposit slip gave it to my sister and left for office. The cheque and deposit slip were collected within 2 hours of my call, well within the four hour commitment that the bank makes. The cheque was also processed on the very same day.

(3) Bank transfer: I decided to check this feature by transfering money to my father who holds an accoutn with SBI in a small town. The YES bank net banking interface allows you to search for banks that have signed up for this facility and also gives you their code numbers (you don't have to call up the other bank to get this detail). The transfer was done in a simple two step process and the money credited to my fathers account within the end of day.

Customer support:

Of course all of these activities involved talking to the customer supportand YES bank again scores here. The people I have spoken to were all well informed , and could clarify all my doubts. They could also react quickly on my requests. Again the support number has always worked when I called up and I was not put on hold either.

Costs & cons:

The three key features that are important to me come free of cost. The only above normal cost comes in the form of the minimum balance of Rs.10,000 - which does not seem to be too high for the kind of services that they offer. Again this minimum balance requirement translates to a penalty of Rs.300 odd per quarter in case you are unable to meet the balance requirement. An amount that I would anyway recover in the form of a reduced petrol bill and time wasted in the bank or ATM queues.

I was also levied a Rs.150 annual debit card fees which the salesperson had failed to inform me about. That left a bad taste in my mouth.

Again the RTGS facility is free only at YES banks end. You need to confirm what the charges are at the receiving banks end. It was Rs.250 per transaction with my current bank (IDBI) - too high for me to use the facility with them. The good news is that it was an YES bank customer support executive who informed me that the other bank could levy these charges and I therefore avoided losing the Rs.250 that IDBI charges. Incidentally SBI does not charge anything for these transactions. So I can make use of this facility for the primary reason that I wanted it, without incurring added costs.

Post purchase and Proactiveness:

Two days after having done my RTGS transfer, I got a call from customer support. Seeing that I had used most of their services, they wanted to know "if there is any other service that you feel we could add" :-)

WOW

You must have noticed by now that I have missed out on something very important about a bank. The actual banking experience at its premises, attitude of the employees, etc. But thats something you need to ask someone else -

You see -I have never visited the bank,and only recently knew where it was located when I spotted it near Nungambaakam.