Banking in India and Business in General is Based On Relationships. Read an Expat's Perspective

chillibreeze writer — Kumar Sivan

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Having spent the last 18 years of my life outside India, mostly in western countries between USA and Europe, I found this banking experience rather different. I was recently in the city of Chennai visiting my parents, who have lived there for over 40 years. They wanted to open a joint bank account that included my mother and I and I intended to take care of some of the dividends that came in from investments that they made in my name. They had picked out this private bank (Bank X), which was literally next door to where they lived.

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Typically in the West, if you wish to open a bank account, the requirements are quite standardized. These would include perhaps, an application form, a set of documents, which established your identity, a tax id number and some money to deposit. If you have these, practically anyone can open a bank account. These requirements are common and applied to anyone that wished to open an account.

This is the point of reference from which I was coming from. My parents had me fill out the application form at home, but we could not hand it in as it was a Saturday and not considered an auspicious day to open a new account. Therefore they had made arrangements with the bank that they would turn it in a few days later when the alignment of the stars and the planets were better. However, the bank needed to ensure that I was who I said I was before they let me open the account. For this, I had to visit the bank along with my mother, which proved to be rather interesting.

We walked to the bank. At first appearance it seemed like it was closed, however the shutters were open just a crack to allow one person in at a time and we squeezed through. My mom proceeded to walk into the employees’ section of the bank. There was not a hint of hesitation in her stride or demeanor, almost as if she were walking into her own house! Now, typically, in the West, the area of the bank where the employees sit is generally closed off, and, in several cases behind bulletproof glass. I was totally taken aback that a person could walk right into the employee section with such ease. Surveying the area, it seemed rather casual, half the desks were empty, several ceiling fans churning up the hot afternoon air, an assortment of paperweights held down various files and documents on the desks that lay around. It was difficult to determine who worked there and who was visiting, like we were. My mom walked right up to the Lady Officer that she had discussed the matter of opening this account with earlier. She considered my mom a friend and they exchanged pleasantries. Right after this my mom proceeded to introduce me as her son. The Lady Officer, quickly nodded her head to acknowledge my presence, barely even making eye contact. The most important detail to be noted here is that my mom, during the introduction, merely referred to me as her son, no names were mentioned! I could not help but think, she could just as well have dragged in any clown off the street and passed him off as her son. Some additional explanations were made about her bringing in the filled out application forms on an upcoming auspicious day. The Lady Officer added that a photocopy of my passport should be included with this. While this exchange carried on, I continued to take in the rest of the bank premises. Several calendars of various sizes and shapes, possible gifts from businesses and individuals considered friends of the bank, were clustered on the wall facing me. Several of them had remnants of red and yellow paste on the pictures of the gods from past religious festivals. There was even one that said “Bank X welcomes Sathya Sai devotees.” I could not help but wonder if Bank X offered equal opportunity banking to non-Sathya Sai devotees. Within a few minutes we were done with the conversation.

On our way out we had to walk past an elderly gentlemen who appeared to be waiting for someone. Apparently he knew my parents as he said hello to my mom. She proceeded to introduce me to him, without any name-calling of course! The gentlemen mentioned that he had known my parents for several years and mentioned the location of his flat relative to that of my parents. He was sitting there with a thick wad of cash that he could barely hold in his hands. Once again, having become used to a society that is heavily depended on credit cards and other forms of plastic, I could not help but be struck by this frail looking old man sitting so casually with what seemed like an enormous amount of cash. To me only gangsters seemed to have that kind of cash, but in a society in India that still dealt a lot in cash, perhaps it was not an uncommon sight.

Overall, the visit to the bank, although it lasted all of 10 minutes, left me to ponder over the vast differences that divide India and perhaps many countries in the east, with the west. Many business transactions seem to be handled predominantly on the basis of relationships. It is not what you know but who you know. To the Lady Officer at Bank X, the application forms, documents of identification, tax ids et al seemed less important in comparison to the relationship that she had with my parents, her customers. If they brought in someone to be a future client, that was good enough without going into more details.

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—About our writer:

Kumar writes for chillibreeze.