HDFC Bank

I have my savings account with HDFC since the year 2000. This account was opened at Vadodara and then in 2002 I shifted to New Delhi, contuniuing my savings account with HDFC only. I also have a credit card from HDFC. If I faced any problem with HDFC and lodged a complaint, it was immediately responded. Their customer service has always been very friendly and excellent!

HDFC is an utter and total con job. Have shifted all my funds from there. They only want you to buy their Insurance policies, once you do that you are completely ignored by the the bank personnel.

Respond to the complaints within resonable time. good.

1. To the extent things are automated, they are OK; but slightly new query or unusual request and things tend to go haywire.
2. They still need to depend on senior personnel who were once in PSU banks -- with the same old bureaucratic mindset -- which is difficult to change.
3. The technology systems are not carefully thought through, for every little thing they will ask you to fill a form, which may take anywhere from days to months to take effect within their system, sometimes one may need to repeat the same request because someone did not care to upload it at first.
4. Any change in directory information (address, phone no., email ID etc.) at one place within their system should automatically reflect in the entire universe, but they work in silos, so need separate requests for savings account, credit card, demat account, company director's cust ID etc.
5. Their cheque books come with sheets to keep record of transactions, but funnily enough, there is no space for credit entry, only for debit entry. In the present day and age, many of the transactions are done online without writing a cheque, and one may want to keep record in the cheque book itself, but for a 25-cheque cheque book, they will at most provide transaction sheet containing 30 entries, which is never sufficient. What a stupid way to save on costs!
6. RBI may have directed banks to update KYC of customers on a regular basis, but I am not aware of its frequency. HDFC bank asks for updation of KYC so frequently that it is a pain, don't know why. And even in this frequent update, there should be a provision that if there are no changes in customer information, one should need to just mention this fact and sign the form, without any need to submit copies of documents etc. This is in a case where I talk to local branch personnel almost on a daily basis, and they know of my customer information personally. But I guess they are required to keep collecting reams of documents to fulfill statutory requirements.
7. I keep sharing most of this experience with RMs but rarely do I get a feedback, nor have I seen any change.
8. The most irritating are HDFC Bank's frequent self-congratulatory letters/emails blowing their trumpet about some award for best bank in Asia or some such thing.
This list is not exhaustive.

Reasonably efficient and service oriented. However, their aggressive marketing agents try to fool customers with false promises only to fulfill the personal objectives/KRAs of these individuals/HDFC executives; there should be some more ethics of professionalism to rank even better among banking community.