To my Bank: When will you ...

Stop charging me for those demand drafts (or atleast lower the charges)? When I make a demand draft, I either give you hard cash or the amount gets immediately deducted from my account. Till the time the draft is encashed, you can use this money and earn interest on it. I cannot claim anything on the money for that period (which is fair enough). I do not believe that it takes a lot of effort to make that demand draft. I have thought a lot, but am unable to find why I have to pay that amount over the draft value. The benefit of the draft is that the other party (getting the draft) is assured that it would receive the money. But it is not that you have trusted me or are doing a favour (given that the money is already with you).

Stop charging me for ATM withdrawals from ATMs of other banks? Oh! I guess I am a little late on this. You have already done this. Or you have been forced into doing that (Thank you, RBI). Just because I had no other choice but withdraw from other ATMs (given the dearth of your ATMs), does it gave you the right to reduce my balance?

Increase the amount I can withdraw daily from an ATM? I thought that the ATMs were also meant for emergency. The current withdrawal limit does not justify this idea. The amount that you are allowing me today does not cover most kinds of emergency that I might face. I agree that you would have to manage your ATMs more efficiently (in terms of making cash available), but is that too much to ask?

Make it possible for any of your branches to dynamically become my local branch? These days when I travel (or even when I am in the same city as my local branch), I cannot be sure that I can go to any of your branches and do all the transactions I want to. Many of your branches are not connected to the central computing facility and so cannot even check my account balance. I do not have so much time as to travel to my local branch each time I feel like banking (irrespective of my location). The branches which are centrally connected charge me as soon as I step into the branch office. What is with that? I was of the view that technology usage is getting cheaper by the day, isn't that so?

Increase the interest I get on my savings balance? Let's leave everything I have requested upto now. Just think about this request. Don't you think it is high time that you do something about those meager interest rates that you proudly distribute to me for my savings? I have trusted you with my money and I know that you earn thick interest on that money by lending them to various individuals and institutions. I think you deserve that for all the hard work you do in managing this wealth. But I also deserve to get a somewhat better portion of those proceeds.

Consider the correct savings balance amount while calculating the interest? I see that your profits have increased very rapidly in the last few years. Still you have not left your old habit of squeezing every single Rupee from your customers. If I understand, I do not get interest on my balance on a daily basis. It is calculated on a monthly basis. The amount is taken to be the minimum of the balance between the 10th of the month and the end of the month. Is such behaviour really necessary? (Again the RBI has come to the rescue and has accepted my request. This will be applicable from the beginning of next financial year)

I will wait for your reply and until then would have to operate in the system that you have already set in.

Your loyal customer.

P.S. I have not spoken anything about your phone banking or internet banking offerings. The reason is that, only when I see substantial progress on these basic requests, can I see myself commenting on those. It is not that I have nothing nice to say about you. The ease with which I can get loans from you these days is unprecedented.