To truly laugh, you must be able to take your pain, and play with it!”― Charles Chaplin
Amir or Amitabh, I don’t remember now, kept showing New York, London and Dubai on CNBC, arguing with love, that Maxim Bank (MBank) is a must for any global citizen. I fell for it. I went to their Nariman Point branch in Bombay. At the entrance, ATM machines invited me instead of Amitabh. Hafeez Contractor was visible in the furnishings. Neha, the Relationship Manager, welcomed me. She looked like the paperback edition of Priyanka Chopra. Coffee came magically. Forms appeared. I moved forward several folds in my decision making and made MBank as my primary banker. I did not realize that I signed on the dotted lines of the word written in bold – ‘TROUBLE’.
Not quite. First year went well. I maintained good balances. I tagged the bank to all my investments like mutual funds, bonds, share trading account and insurance. Neha was laughing all the way to MBank with customers like me. Literally. She got promoted. I got another job and moved to Singapore.
While I closed my share trading account, I retained every other investment including the account at MBank. Once I got to routine in Singapore, I almost forgot about the MBank account.
My friend Nawalkar in Mumbai picks up local letters from my apartment every week and sends it by ordinary post once a month to my Singapore address. One fine morning, sorry, not so fine morning, I got a letter from MBank that I was violating some banking regulations in India since I have not converted my bank account from the Resident status to Non Resident one and that I needed to submit a list of documents immediately. The consequences for non-compliance appeared worth worrying. How did they know that I moved? It struck me that I mentioned my move in one my coffee meetings with the ‘paperback’ and she must have written an internal note. I looked at the list with juices of discomfort in my stomach. It was looking longer than our monthly grocery list. Also, I had some questions.
Next day, I figured out the India number (each city had one number) of MBank and called them. The phone quickly got connected. Machine greetings. “Welcome to MBank, phone banking – Dear customer, never share your card number, CVV, OTP or Pin over the phone, MBank staff will never ask for these details….’’ It sounded like what my mom said when I went to Bombay 30 years back. ‘’Take oil bath once a week, don’t drink too much of coffee, always go home on time…’’ – that was at least free advice. Here, I was paying SingTel to hear the free overseas machine advice.
Once the advisory ceremony was over, the machine continued, for loss of card press 1, banking account press 2, for credit card press 3, for loans press 4, for demat or online trading press 5….I was not sure what to press –I just pressed 2. It asked me to dial my debit card number. Now, I was really confused. First the machine had just advised that they will never ask for the card details but now it is asking me to input my card number? – I convinced myself that it said the staff will never ask the card details, however, it is the machine which is asking now hence it should be fine. I punched the number, it asked for the expiry date, with few seconds of hesitation I dialed, it asked for the date of birth in DD, MM, and YY format. I provided. I was waiting for it to ask for the details of moles on my body as a second level of authentication. I was wrong.
The line went on a silent mode for a few seconds and then there was a combination of ring tone and an engaged tone. I was not sure which tone I should trust and how I should react, especially since my international phone bill was running and I was getting late to the office too. I just hung up.
Hell with calling them. I just decided to put together the documents and courier the set to MBank rather than call them again. I looked at the list – An application form (to be filled in BLOCK letters – will they send it back if I fill it up in small letters?), consularized or notarized copies of the passport, work permit, OCI card if you have one, recent copy of the bank statement or electricity bill, a cancelled cheque leaf, recently filed IT return and your marriage certificate….the list went on.
I spent the next two weeks patiently putting all those documents together. I looked at the calendar for an auspicious day and couriered everything to MBank’s processing center in Chennai. Next one month was like Narasima Rao’s political life – complete silence, no reaction.
When the next monthly mail arrived from Nawalkar it looked more pregnant than normal. I opened up and I could see a closed envelope from MBank. I opened the envelope with a pounding heart. The same bunch of documents which I managed to collect, attest and courier them had been returned. The covering letter calmly said that the documentation was incomplete and hence they cannot convert the status of the account. Period. Pre-printed form with a tick in one of the boxes. Not even a signature. Computer generated. I became furious.
I searched for the newly bought calling card and called MBank, Bombay immediately. After a frustrating session with the computer for 25 minutes got connected to one Jaanvi. I started all over again like a broken LP record. She put me on hold and came back after 10 minutes – ‘’Sir, your documentation was adequate, however, there is a domestic demat account attached to your account and you hold one share of Tsunami Fin services Ltd – only when you either convert this share into physical or sell and close the account, we are able to convert the account into non-resident one sir’’ – with full respect from the beginning till the end. I asked why the letter they sent first did not indicate this problem. She said she was not sure. End of that futile conversation.
I strained my brain neurons and remembered in 2003 I helped my friend Naveen to set up a company called Tsunami Fin services Ltd and signed the memorandum and articles of that company and one share was allotted in my name by their Board. That company must have opened a demat account with MBank and registered one share, with me as the nominee holder. Since my personal account details and the nominee details are similar, it must have got mixed with my real operating account. OMG! How am I going to resolve this?
I vaguely remembered that Naveen had sold that company and moved to his hometown in Rajkot. I located the board number of Tsunami and reached out. I was simply lucky that I could speak to the CFO. Mr. Krishnan, CFO (somebody should research as to why most of the Indian CFOs are Southees) patiently heard the details and took my email id and said he will respond within 2 days. He did. He sent a mail saying that he had spoken to MBank and they have confirmed that they have changed the nominee’s name to Krishnan and currently there is no holding of any share in my name under any demat account with MBank. He also emailed me a copy of the communication from MBank.
By this time my family’s annual vacation was approaching in December and I decided that I will go personally to MBank, Bangalore branch and give them the documentation in person along with the confirmation email from Tsunami. I did. I met a junior officer, tie-clad, clean shaven, formally dressed Parasu and asked him if he could see any demat account attached to my account. He said it was clean. I submitted all the documents once again.
Having gone that far, I also gave a request form to change my phone number from an India number (which was defunct) to my Singapore number. Parasu told me that he cannot take an overseas number change at the counter for technical reasons. However, he said I could first change to a local working India number through the counter. Parallelly, I get online access to the account and change the local number to overseas number through MBank’s website. That was like a Govinda movie. No logic. However Parasu was a smart guy. Seemed to know the problems but more importantly all the solutions. I filled up the forms and put Nawalkar’s number in Bombay as my local number. I forgot to inform Nawalkar.
All is well that ends well right? Well. Not in my case.
After I returned to Singapore, for a change, MBank called me on my hand phone (I had already created the online access and changed my number from Nawalkar’s to my Singapore number by that time). I was excited. Customer is being taken care of finally. The most reputed bank is calling the customer to serve him. After the lady asked me about my well-being, she broke the good news. She said that the documentation is still inadequate for converting my account from resident status to NRO. She said that the demat account was still existing and is attached to my operating account. I told her that the MBank’s Bangalore branch indeed confirmed that it has been removed. She said she was not sure why they said that. I did not have the contact of Parasu in Bangalore to call and connect both of them. Back to square one.
The same day, Nawalkar called me saying that he was getting an SMS from MBank every Sunday sharp 12 noon showing the available balance in my account on his hand phone and his wife is screaming and investigating. I had already changed the number online a few weeks back, right? If that had really happened in the MBank systems why is the balance confirmation going to his phone? Does that mean, if I do any online transaction, the OTP will go to him? If my number has not been changed, how did the call center lady called me just now in my Singapore phone? My goodness! I told Nawalkar that I would check this out with MBank.
I felt like I was re-arranging furniture in Titanic. I was frustrated and remembered what Aamir said on the TV on the need of a global citizen and quickly looked for how to reach him. Alas! I remembered that Aamir himself was looking to move out of India. How is he going to help me?
I am very tired now and am in the verge of giving up. Will I go to work and manage my livelihood or chase endlessly MBank to resolve my problems? Now-a-days, they say, there are online solutions for all the problems and hence I decided to write this post.
I know many of you work in Banks, Financial Services and Wealth Management firms or perhaps may be from MBank itself. Do you have any contacts at the call center of this big global bank in India? Please help me resolve this problem, I promise that I will like all your profile pictures, comment positive on all your posts and will share your posts with 1000 odd friends I have on Facebook.
What…? Why are you screaming? You have a similar problem…? Let us collectively hunt for cheap calling cards
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