A trip to the bank

In this episode I would like to share my experience of visiting the local bank. It all started on Saturday, the day we had planned to visit London. En route we decided to visit the bank in which Adarsh holds an account to notify the change of address. Though the banking system is almost similar to the one back in India, the procedures are slightly different. As soon as you enter the premises, bank employees give you one-on-one attention no matter what the issue is. Luckily we found an elderly woman named Davina Salisby. She was very sweet to us and finished the intended job in a jiffy. She just did not send us away with that. Realising the fact that we had recently moved into the new apartment, she proceeded to advertise some of the banking products which actually was on our minds too. Back in Indian nationalised bank branches, only the manager has a cabin. But here, there are multiple cabins each equipped with a computer and the required stationary. So, she took us into one of these and we had a long chat. Since we were already late, we decided to proceed with opening an account for me too. It was slightly doubtful since on a previous attempt we were informed that a house wife may not be able to get one. But Davina was really sweet and patient and tried to open one for me. Luckily, with a recommendation from Adarsh, this became possible. What struck me most was the fact that this lady is a part time employee who may be in her mid 50s. Back in India, customers get accustomed to a particular staff member in a given branch and get very irritated if they do not find him/her. But here, every customer and every staff member is a nuclear entity. This greatly reduces the dependence on the human factor. Again, back in India though all the banks are computerised, they still believe in a lot of paper work and proofs and photographs. But here, the passport and the visa are the ultimate proofs and no photographs are required. All the computerised modules are so comfortable and handy that all you need to know is English and a few legal banking terms. I was really impressed with the system here.

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