It has been a relationship lasting over decades... with the bank that promised to never sleep. Although I had no traditional banking relationship with the them, my credit card was issued by this bank probably 20 years ago and I have had no cause to complain. In fact, compared to the horror stories I have heard of other credit card issuers, I have had none to relate. My bill comes on time, there are no sudden surprise charges, and their call centre workers are polite and efficient - much more than what one can expect of most service providers today.
So when I got an email from my card issuer asking me to submit my KYC (know your customer) details afresh, I paid heed quickly. But a few weeks after I had submitted my Aadhaar card as proof of identity and address, I received another email telling me that my KYC data could not be processed because my address as per the Aadhaar card was not the same as the address that the bank had.
A trifle perplexed, I decided to call the bank. I was told that although my address as per the bank records was 'Abakash', 34, Purbapally, Santiniketan 731235, the address as per the Aadhaar card did not mention "34". The voice at the other end helpfully suggested I use my voter card. I read out my address as per my voter card: "Gram-Purbapalli, Mouja-Bolpur, Visva Bharati Area, Bolpur, Birbhum". Not wanting to go into the intricacies of this one, she quickly suggested I use my passport as proof. At which point I had to tell her that some dyslexic in-putter of data had changed the pin code of my address on my passport from 731235 to 713235.
Not wanting to pull out more and more proofs of address - all the handiwork of different government machineries - I suggested that I send her all the address proofs that I had and the bank would be able to make out that 'Abakash', 34, Purbapalli was indeed the truth, albeit a trifle distorted by each agency. After all, I argued with her, the whole point of the KYC is to ensure that the bank is assured beyond reasonable doubt that the customer is bona fide and lives where she claims to. And surely KYC norms allow the bank some discretion in dealing with a customer of over two decades.
She asked politely if she could put me on hold. I agreed and settled into my chair to listen to music for a while. I imagined her taking this complicated case to a senior guy, who would immediately see the merit in my argument. But I was wrong. She came back on the line and repeated exactly what she had been telling me all along, that my address proof had to exactly match the bank records.
Exasperated, I thought that with the advent of the back-office call centre personnel, a banker's discretion is obviously a commodity at a premium. As the voice at the other end continued to talk, I started wondering which other bank I could get a card issued from, because this 'never sleeping one' would soon disown me as a customer.
I came back to the present conversation and heard the girl telling me not to worry because she had a solution. I was delighted. My banker for so many years would not let me down after all! Her solution was simple. Since documents could not be changed we could do the next best thing. Change the original address that I had submitted to the bank to exactly match a document. I did that with the security of my T-pin and everyone was happy.
Long live KYC.
Disclaimer: These are personal views of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect the opinion of www.business-standard.com or the Business Standard newspaper
