Saturday, June 20, 2009

MNC/PVT Banking Con

Not long ago, a wise guy in my department of sales advised me, “Consultants are guys who look at your watch and tell you what the time is.” This was during one of those meetings held in my MNC to achieve ISO and quality policy certification.

In such meetings, the consultant individually asked us our job profile, how we go about doing our job, the process, etc. On the last day, he gave us an excellent presentation on how we should be doing our job which sounded very professional and impressive. Of course, we were all given a neat folder with lot of charts and jargons. After a year or so, I read it one evening and realized that it actually is what we had told the consultant in the first place on the first day.

How well do we know our bank is what I am trying to cover in this blog of mine. Actually we do not know them at all. Banking in India and elsewhere is a nice con. Bankers make money because people do not know and trust each other, i.e. you have excess money and I am in need. You deposit the money, get some measly 8% with lot of stars and I pay some 14 % and give collateral which is 2.5 times the loan amount. My calculator is throwing a margin of some 75% or so earned by our bank with our money.

Recently, my accountant who commutes from Kalyan and my Peon from a chawl in Mulund, decided they should own a house of their own. As such they are paying rent which is more than the EMI as per the calculations given in website of various bank.

MBA Marketing Managers of Kotak Mahindra and Standard Chartered, who tried for over 6 months to make an inroad to my cabin to get our account, turned away my peon and the accountant for housing loan. The reason give is “policy matter” which negates sanction of any loan to people who reside beyond Thane. This is ridiculous as I know for sure many of the employees from these banks hail from Dombivli and Nala sopara.

NPA amongst housing loan from areas beyond Thane is less than 1%. I am sure there should be some law against this practice of KM and SC for discriminatory attitude they have against people residing beyond Thane.

I am closing my account with Standard Chartered bank and Kotak Mahindra. They are not bankers, they are plain money lenders. I will go to them when I want because, I know they will give, when they know for sure that they will make money and it makes business sense to them. I don’t have to have a relationship with them. Yeah, the guys, who are in regular touch with my staff including this peon and the accountant, are designated as ‘Relationship Managers’.

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