“Know your customer” has become “knife your customer”. I seek the indulgence of readers for a brief exposition of my treatment at the hands of a large, global, commercial bank. The bank in question is HSBC India, of which I have been a customer for more than two decades. On our return to Delhi from Holland after five years in June this year we were asked to update the KYC details on our account. This we duly did, but this did not prevent the bank from threatening to close the account via a letter in mid-July. We pointed out that we had in fact complied, and this fact was acknowledged in a letter dated September 8. That September letter, however, noted that there was “additional personal information” that was required by the bank. The information required was not detailed. Instead, I was asked to contact the relationship manager (RM), who hardly ever picks up his phone.
As I was again travelling, my wife reached one of this tribe, who read out a long list of very intrusive and unusual documents that the bank now required. Since no other bank had requested such details, and the information required was extensive, she asked the RM to send what was needed in writing. Nothing was received then or has been since.
On October 19, my wife went to retrieve items from her locker at our local branch and was told that it had been sealed as per a letter that we had never received and which, despite two hours of effort, the branch was unable to produce. She was further told that I also needed to be present. When I joined her, I was told we would be given access only if the locker was surrendered. Under written protest we surrendered the locker and cleared its contents. It was only on return to our house later that afternoon that the letter in question, dated October 18, just one day before, was delivered to our home. As in July, it once again cited lack of requested documentation as a reason for closing our account and gave us a deadline of November 18.
Angered by this high-handed behaviour and still with no written indication of which documents were being requested and why, I wrote to the officer signing these letters, an R S Rajagopalan, head, branch network for the bank, in Mumbai. This was couriered on October 26 and received by him the next day. To my astonishment, within hours of receipt and well before the November 18 deadline indicated in the October 18 letter, all funds were withdrawn from my account by the bank. No explanation for this peremptory action has ever been given, nor have I received a response to my letter to Rajagopalan. To add insult to injury I have more recently received further communication indicating that my account will be shut down on November 18, in seeming unawareness of the fact that this was already done unilaterally by the bank at the end of October!
The question is whether such arbitrary, unilateral action is permitted under the terms of the retail banking licence granted to HSBC or to any other bank.
If there is a silver lining to this sad tale it lies in the exemplary treatment and service I have enjoyed from the Indian private sector bank to which I have shifted my business. For my late parents’ generation, their preferred choice for their personal banking was almost always a British colonial bank. Now the tables have turned. Sometimes, particularly in the services sector, we do get there!
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Suman Bery , New Delhi
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