Jan 10, 2007 05:39 PM
3284 Views
(Updated Jan 10, 2007 05:41 PM)
Good review by Tushar.. "professional rogues".... I too have been banking with ICICI since 2003, and have come to realise one thing about them. As long as you don't have to interact with them, you're good. But God help you if you need to execute some kind of instruction out of the ordinary.
For e.g. : When I was working with a banking software company in Noida, we had our salary account with ICICI. Part of the deal was that ICICI would give their "preferred" mastercards as "free for life", i.e. till you worked with the company. I applied for one, and man was that a shocker. First I got their HPCL gold cards, instead of the MasterCard Preferred.
Thereon, they charged 2k as fee. Fortunately I had a friend working in the cards division, and I could get this sorted out in about a month and a half. Finally the preferred cards arrived. I've since then even cancelled those, cause of a dispute on account of payment dates... I paid on the last day of teh cycle, but Aug 15 fell on a working day, and their cheque wasn't collected in time, cause of which there were charges. so we parted ways on the card account.
However, to give the devil his due, I had a better experience when financing my car. (A) since there was a salary account, I had a preapproved loan, and though I had to spend about an hour and a half on the phone (2 disconnections, and 2 separate people to talk to in customer service, then the loans approval), I got an approval code from them.
This code I gave to the ICICI Direct Sales team executive, and managed to get 7.25% as the rate for the car. Thanks to these guys, my Wagon R Lxi cost me 5940.00 a month (Rohan Motors at Ghaziabad did a lot of discounting on the car as well, since it was December 2005!).
But getting the car transferred to Mumbai was a semi nightmare with ICICI. I went to the Sector 18 branch at noida, where they promptly gave me a token and asked me to wait... all I wanted to know was to get Bombay, and get a letter from them to continue the hypothecation. I waited for an hour, only to be told I need to go to the loans office, a kilometer away. C'mon, someone could have told me that an hour ago, when I came in.
Anyway, after another hour at the other office, I got the formalities completed, only to be told that it''ll take 7 days for the letter to come! I was leaving in 3 days, so the total time it took for me to change my address on the loan and get a letter of continuation, was 2 hours, 2 offices, spoke to 2 reps, and then asked a friends for help to go collect it! never mind the experience at the Noida RTO!
However, the address change on the savings account was a simpler affair. A letter, a passport photocopy dropped into the box at the ATM did the trick, albeit it took the better part of the month.
so with ICICI I've realised that the following are "critical" to surviving the banking relationships:
Patience. Get practice, you'll need a lot of it. The least on Internet Banking, the most if you go to a Branch, and somewhere in the middle if you go to an ATM with a 40 strong queue outside.
NetBanking is absolutely critical. Close the account if you can't Net Bank. Cause any other way, you can't bank anyway. Phone banking hold times kill you, if you survive the IVR's attempts of murder through "press 1 for..., press 2 for...".don't ever call them from you cell, or your cellphone company's stock price will jump to the circuit breaker on profits from your hold time.
Stay as far away from the branch as possible. they don't want you to come there, and you for sure don't want to go there. The next most populace place on the planet, other than an ICICI branch is the ISBT, New Delhi. Don't ask me which is better organised!
Interest rates are good - normally the best deal in the market. That is only what keeps me going to ICICI (read Car loan experience above).
Finaly word of advise. Know what you're getting into is absolutely critical when banking with ICICI, whether it is reading their small print on the forms, or waiting at their branches. If you know what you are getting into, have patience, and are willing to take on the system for a bit, you'll be fine.
You'll even find good people working there, but sometimes they need uncompromising customers to get things done. Otherwise, as the laws of mass market go, you're a spec of cosmic dust in a universe of customers. You need fall into their eye and be irritating enough to get their attention. Otherwise, they're too huge to need you. You will most definitely, need them (since they undercut most of the market with their product offerings and costs).
Cheers! and happy banking!
