C O N N

editorialDr. R. BhaskaranChief Executive Officer,IIBF, MumbaiBanking is like any other business. As such customer satisfaction is important forbanks. However, the issue of customer service in banking goes beyond the normalbusiness sense because banking is an essential economic activity. The fact banking isalso a public utility makes customer service all the more important. Generally, it is seen thatcustomer service gets more attention and talked about in the case of highly regulated business.Banking, Insurance, PSU etc come under regulators. It is often felt that when a business is anessential (utility) economic activity the customer is not treated fairly and hence regulatorsintervene to ensure fair practices. What makes service in banking complicated is the fact thatbanks render financial services, the products are of great variety and the terms are not easilyunderstood.There are nearly 853 million (2010) deposit and loan accounts. These customers hold 228million debit cards, 18 million credit cards, and 455 million transactions are put through theelectronic systems. This is accomplished through 74,130 (2011) branches, 74,505 ATMs andnearly a million employees of the banks. On an average the number of accounts per employee isless than 100! Moreover as the banks are fully 'core banked' the number of customers will be bitlower than the number of accounts listed above. IT has made banking much easier. Also many ofthe housekeeping tasks which were previously holding the attention of the employees have beenmechanized making the employees free to attend to customers. It therefore follows that thereshould be better customer service. However the customer complaints are on the increase. Issuesrelated to credit and debit cards, issues related to the non adherence to the fair practices oflenders, pensioners, mis-selling dominate the complaints. Yet the amount of discussion andconcern heard on the issue points out to the need for attitudinal change on the part of the bankers.That the customer service needs to be given top priority can also be inferred by the fact that therecommendations of the RBI constituted committee on customer service have been mentioned bythe previous committees.IIBF is involved in the issue of financial literacy which will improve customer awareness. Thecertificate course on customer service is an important offering from the institute.The Journal of Indian Institute of Banking & Finance October - December 2011 3