Dear Corporate honchos, high net-worth
individuals and Non Resident Indians (NRIs) – who are too busy, too important, too
aged or too distracted to keep track of their hard-earned money, and therefore
entrust this job to Bank’s portfolio
management, wealth management and asset management services. Have you signed
blank forms and letters giving Bank blanket permissions to trade on your behalf,
pay insurance premiums, housing mortgages, bills etc? Has your friendly neighbourhood
Bank, through its relationship manager, convinced
you that as a “Premier customer”, the best way to grow your wealth is by giving
it the absolute discretionary power to buy, sell and hold instruments such as
ULIPs and SIPs on your behalf? Have you given a power of attorney that enables
bank branches to take major decisions on your behalf, open bank accounts etc?
And last but not least, does
your relationship manager give you figures and vague reassurances over the
phone, but avoid putting them in writing — all in the name of “personalized
relationship management”?
If you answered yes to
these questions, then maybe you should panic. Call your chartered accountant
immediately and get him to study whether your funds have grown or remained
steady over the past few years… or whether they have greatly diminished.
At various stages of the
relationship, smooth-talking relationship managers get these high net-worth
individuals (HNWIs) and NRIs to sign disclaimer, waivers and powers of attorney
that give Bank’s various branches uncontrolled access to their funds, and helps
impose unfair and illegal terms and practices on such individuals. This is done
ostensibly to ‘reduce red tape’ and ‘to better manage the portfolio’. With the
clean chit now in hand, Bank methodically builds a situation where the
expatriate or HNWI customers start complying with unreasonable and dubious
demands for fund remittance into the account. Opting for online bill payment
and having a credit card makes this situation even more complicated, and gives
the bank a massive leverage for upsetting the customer’s daily life. Busy
people are so entangled in this relationship with the bank that they fear a
messy financial disruption. Expats are often worried about their family members
in India
Aged and ailing people, expats
with a busy flying schedule or people going through a professional/personal
crisis simply have no energy to seriously take up this fight. So they file
complaints to the bank’s higher ups, and receive vague assurances, often in
exchange for signatures on waivers, disclaimers and more blanket permissions of
the sort that caused their problems in the first place! The mechanisms for
“dispute redressal” give customers a false sense of security for a few more
months… And the bank’s stranglehold on the helpless customer grows stronger
with each passing month, despite his knowledge that he is being sucked dry.
Expats are extremely
vulnerable because of (a) the practical difficulties posed by time zones, market
timings and office timings (b) different banking regulatory regimes and banking
practices followed in India, USA, UK, UAE, Europe and Malaysia.
So ask immediately to
your Bank to give you full details of your investments and start transferring funds
from those investments where you are facing loses or not getting expecting
returns to some safe avenues as suggested by various independent websites or
credit agencies.
For other details / queries, drop a mail at prashant.singh@sbi.co.in
