Rural Account Pros & Cons

[kishorvr]

1. If I open my account in a rural location to take advantage of low amb/aqb, should you live in that particular rural location?
2. Along with low amb/aqb, they may provide Rupay platinum debit card contrary to your wish to acquire select debit card. Can we not apply for a select dc later?
3. Do rural accounts get credit card offers?

Please feel free to list some more pros and cons of opening bank accounts in rural locations.

 

[Pankhuri]

Let's reverse roles and see how sarkari bankers will do on the fields. Maybe they already wish they were farmers and not deal with the large crowd.

Tbh large crowds is overblown. The people using banks in rural areas are quite small part of the whole population in that area.

But yeah, sarkari bankers there do feel like this. Cousin works for pnb. Apparently PNB expects that their employees would sell home loans in a branch where most of the savings accounts are Sukanya smridhi accounts.

 

[kishorvr]

Tbh large crowds is overblown. The people using banks in rural areas are quite small part of the whole population in that area.

But yeah, sarkari bankers there do feel like this. Cousin works for pnb. Apparently PNB expects that their employees would sell home loans in a branch where most of the savings accounts are Sukanya smridhi accounts.

Oh rural India is still underbanked. This must change.

They must also sell Kisan credit cards instead of home loans.

 

[kishorvr]

Sad but true. They mis-sell this insurance to poor people at the time of account opening. They have no other option but to accept the charges and move on.

They also open demat account without permission.

Oh! Then let's see if they SIP in a index fund every month also.

 

[Piyush_Jaiswal]

Oh rural India is still underbanked. This must change.

They must also sell Kisan credit cards instead of home loans.

Even if they do, it would turn out to be a nightmare for the farmers and would lead to more suicides.

Once they tell them to issue Kisan CC to poor farmers, the PSU employees would start mis-selling it to everyone. The farmers don't have much financial literacy and would be debt-trapped which would finally result in more suicide cases.

 

[Piyush_Jaiswal]

Oh! Then let's see if they SIP in a index fund every month also.

They don't have any idea about what a Demat Account is. They fool them by saying the charges are for non maintenance, and the people believe it to be true and move on. Now, they feel that it was their mistake of not maintaining the balance, so they can't complain it to anyone.

 

[kishorvr]

They don't have any idea about what a Demat Account is. They fool them by saying the charges are for non maintenance, and the people believe it to be true and move on. Now, they feel that it was their mistake of not maintaining the balance, so they can't complain it to anyone.

I have once helped an illiterate person fill an immigration form in an airport and explained to him every section. I wish we all could pick a villager to explain his banking stuff to him/her.

 

[AritraSaha]

Oh rural India is still underbanked. This must change.

They must also sell Kisan credit cards instead of home loans.

Thankfully Its changing, bank are setting up their bc points in many parts.
the agent are local & behaviour is much better the bank employees.

Aeps & upi changing things also.

 

[kishorvr]

They don't have any idea about what a Demat Account is. They fool them by saying the charges are for non maintenance, and the people believe it to be true and move on. Now, they feel that it was their mistake of not maintaining the balance, so they can't complain it to anyone.

New and renewed demat accounts may be good for their books. But how good is it to show millions of empty demat accounts I wonder.

 

[Pankhuri]

When I opened account in SBI 10 years ago, I remember taking a little sheet of paper with numbers and waiting. This is in Banashankari, Bangalore. For the past two years, I have visited my branch thrice and I did not take the number. I stood in line for not more than 10 minutes. But one banker spoke rudely as if she wished she was somewhere else. I can only imagine what happens in rural branches.

I have a bank account in SBI since 2011, my father has a bank account in that same branch since 1999. In all these years, I have never had visit in that branch which I could count as neutral let alone positive. There was one lady who always used to create ruskus about this or that and I have a tendency to not take shit so I used to shout at her for other people. Those were times before the upi, so had to visit once or twice a month, sometimes more. By the end, she and I kinda became frenemies where we just accepted to lock horns. She retired in 2017, she ironically invited me to her farewell when I visited the branch about a week before her retirement.

Village branches on the other hand I literally had to threaten the employee and security gurad to have an account opened for cousin with form 60 instead of pan card, this was in 2016 or 17. Cousin went with the form and the employee first tried to just tell her to go back and apply with pan then, tore up her form 60 when she insisted that it is fine as per rules. I was in the back to teach cousin how to deal with bankers on her own, but even I didn't expect that. When he did that, cousin called me and told in front of her. I asked him why he did that, he acted nonchalantly and asked the security guard to escort us away. I told security guard that ladki ka chacha SI hai paas ke thane mein, haath lagaya na, 4 saal toh court nahi dekhega, maar khayega roz woh alag. SBI has this weird policy that they give security guards uniforms pretty similar to police uniform of my state, so sometime this goes to their head and they act like that. Then moved to the employee and started arguing with him, branch manager intervened and sorted the shit out. When we were leaving bank employee was saying bahar milio, I said hamara address hai form mein, aukat hai toh aa jaiyo nahi toh apne gaanv ka naam bta de. He told his village name which incidentally my father knows sarpanch of quite well. So, in front of him talked to sarpanch and he kinda calmed him down. Didn't apologize or anything.

 

[Piyush_Jaiswal]

Thankfully Its changing, bank are setting up their bc points in many parts.
the agent are local & behaviour is much better the bank employees.

Aeps & upi changing things also.

Agreed. They are setting up BC Points which is really helpful for them.

But the agents do charge them Rs 10 for balance enquiry. Cash deposits and withdrawals are charged accordingly.
These charges may seem small to you, but it matters a lot to them.

 

[Pankhuri]

They must also sell Kisan credit cards instead of home loans.

They don't have to make any effort to sell those, they sell like hot cakes anyway.

 

[kishorvr]

I have a bank account in SBI since 2011, my father has a bank account in that same branch since 1999. In all these years, I have never had visit in that branch which I could count as neutral let alone positive. There was one lady who always used to create ruskus about this or that and I have a tendency to not take shit so I used to shout at her for other people. Those were times before the upi, so had to visit once or twice a month, sometimes more. By the end, she and I kinda became frenemies where we just accepted to lock horns. She retired in 2017, she ironically invited me to her farewell when I visited the branch about a week before her retirement.

Village branches on the other hand I literally had to threaten the employee and security gurad to have an account opened for cousin with form 60 instead of pan card, this was in 2016 or 17. Cousin went with the form and the employee first tried to just tell her to go back and apply with pan then, tore up her form 60 when she insisted that it is fine as per rules. I was in the back to teach cousin how to deal with bankers on her own, but even I didn't expect that. When he did that, cousin called me and told in front of her. I asked him why he did that, he acted nonchalantly and asked the security guard to escort us away. I told security guard that ladki ka chacha SI hai paas ke thane mein, haath lagaya na, 4 saal toh court nahi dekhega, maar khayega roz woh alag. SBI has this weird policy that they give security guards uniforms pretty similar to police uniform of my state, so sometime this goes to their head and they act like that. Then moved to the employee and started arguing with him, branch manager intervened and sorted the shit out. When we were leaving bank employee was saying bahar milio, I said hamara address hai form mein, aukat hai toh aa jaiyo nahi toh apne gaanv ka naam bta de. He told his village name which incidentally my father knows sarpanch of quite well. So, in front of him talked to sarpanch and he kinda calmed him down. Didn't apologize or anything.

Wow, such a thing can never go unpunished in a private bank. Heads will roll! I liked the fact you taught your cousin to deal with unruly bankers and how you dared the banker to come to your address.

You must also have said to the guard and branch manager that impersonating a police officer is a serious offense.

These sarkari officers are afraid of people who know the rules.

 

[Pankhuri]

Even if they do, it would turn out to be a nightmare for the farmers and would lead to more suicides.

Once they tell them to issue Kisan CC to poor farmers, the PSU employees would start mis-selling it to everyone. The farmers don't have much financial literacy and would be debt-trapped which would finally result in more suicide cases.

Also rural India is unbanked by choice, not because there are not enough branches. The thing is a lot of these places run on cash and don't require any formal banking facility to both acquire that cash. What banking they would even need? Those that need banking are usually quite aware of the avenues. For example, in the mandi systems, cash is more or less outlawed. You are expected to provide a bank account in the name of the person who is registered owner of the lands you are selling produce of. Money is credited to this account and this account only. Banks roll the red carpet for such people, especially the private sector ones.

 

[AritraSaha]

Agreed. They are setting up BC Points which is really helpful for them.

But the agents do charge them Rs 10 for balance enquiry. Cash deposits and withdrawals are charged accordingly.
These charges may seem small to you, but it matters a lot to them.

I have used them myself. They don't charge you for anything.

They get commission for doing this stuff.
They told me of 10k deposit they get ₹32

 

[Pankhuri]

Wow, such a thing can never go unpunished in a private bank. Heads will roll! I liked the fact you taught your cousin to deal with unruly bankers and how you dared the banker to come to your address.

You must also have said to the guard and branch manager that impersonating a police officer is a serious offense.

These sarkari officers are afraid of people who know the rules.

Tbh it is quite easy to dare someone to come to your village address. What they gonna do, come alone and risk a beating by the entire village? or Come in numbers and now have to deal with elders who won't let them do shit anyway.

That uniform thing is official policy. IIRC there have been several cases on this and SBI more or less got the right to do it.

Tbh they are not afraid of anyone. That security guard would not have stopped if I didn't threaten him with extrajudicial punishment. Same with that other employee, he would have no problem keeping the animosity alive for decades if not for the intervention of the sarpanch. Same with bank manager, he didn't come out when I was talking with the employee, or when cousin was arguing with him to just open the account with form 60. It was an almost open office, so it's not like he didn't hear anything. He came only when he saw that there is a possibility of a policeman's relative being treated badly and that would create problems for him that are not worth it.

 

[AritraSaha]

Also rural India is unbanked by choice, not because there are not enough branches. The thing is a lot of these places run on cash and don't require any formal banking facility to both acquire that cash. What banking they would even need? Those that need banking are usually quite aware of the avenues. For example, in the mandi systems, cash is more or less outlawed. You are expected to provide a bank account in the name of the person who is registered owner of the lands you are selling produce of. Money is credited to this account and this account only. Banks roll the red carpet for such people, especially the private sector ones.

Things have changed quite a lot. For govt schemes people(working people 18-65) ahve open account.

There are around 44cr jan dhan account.

 

[kishorvr]

I have used them myself. They don't charge you for anything.

They get commission for doing this stuff.
They told me of 10k deposit they get ₹32

32 is less for 10,000. This is why they do out of the way to increase that number.

 

[Pankhuri]

Wow, such a thing can never go unpunished in a private bank. Heads will roll!

Have similar stories for private banks too, just not something I personally experienced.

 

[kishorvr]

Tbh it is quite easy to dare someone to come to your village address. What they gonna do, come alone and risk a beating by the entire village? or Come in numbers and now have to deal with elders who won't let them do shit anyway.

That uniform thing is official policy. IIRC there have been several cases on this and SBI more or less got the right to do it.

Tbh they are not afraid of anyone. That security guard would not have stopped if I didn't threaten him with extrajudicial punishment. Same with that other employee, he would have no problem keeping the animosity alive for decades if not for the intervention of the sarpanch. Same with bank manager, he didn't come out when I was talking with the employee, or when cousin was arguing with him to just open the account with form 60. It was an almost open office, so it's not like he didn't hear anything. He came only when he saw that there is a possibility of a policeman's relative being treated badly and that would create problems for him that are not worth it.

I guess this is how it works in villages. But your frenemy inviting you to her farewell party was pretty nice.

 

[Pankhuri]

Things have changed quite a lot. For govt schemes people(working people 18-65) ahve open account.

There are around 44cr jan dhan account.

That number is quite fake. I know a lot of people who have jan dhan accounts, who don't even know that they have. Plus those accounts are available to semi urban populations too and those are the major beneficiaries of this, that's why in almost all stats these are clubbed.