Fair Practice Code
1. INTRODUCTION
This is a voluntary Code, which sets standards of fair banking practices to follow when we are dealing with individual customers. It provides valuable guidance to you for your day-to-day operations. The Code applies to :
- current, savings and all other deposit accounts.
- collection and remittance services offered by the banks
- loans and overdrafts
- third party products offered through our network.
About this Code
As a voluntary Code, it promotes competition and encourages market forces to achieve higher operating standards for the benefit of customers. In the Code, ‘you’ denotes the customer and ‘we’ the bank, the customer deals with.
The standards of the Code are covered by the four key commitments found in section 2.
Unless it says otherwise, all parts of this Code apply to all the products and services listed above, whether they are provided by branches across the counter, over the phone, by post, through interactive electronic devises, on the internet or by any other method.
Commitments outlined in this Code are applicable under normal operating environment. In the event of force majeure, we may not be able to fulfil the commitments under this Code.
Key words which are shown in bold print in the Code are defined in the Annexure at the end of the Code.
This Code comes into effect from 1st June 2004 unless otherwise indicated.
2. KEY COMMITMENTS
Our Key commitments to you
We promise to:
Act fairly and reasonably in all our dealings with you by:
- Meeting the commitments and standards in this Code, for the products and services we offer, and in the procedures and practices our staff follow
- Making sure our products and services meet relevant laws and regulations
- Our dealings with you will rest on ethical principles of integrity and transparency.
- Help you to understand how our financial products and services work by:
- Giving you information about them in plain Hindi and/or English and/or the local language
- Explaining their financial implications and
- Helping you choose the one that meets your needs.
- Deal quickly and sympathetically with things that go wrong by :
- Correcting mistakes quickly
- Handling your complaints quickly
- Telling you how to take your complaint forward if you are still not satisfied and
- Reversing any bank charges that we apply due to our mistake.
Publicise this Code, put it on our website and have copies available for you on request.
3. INFORMATION
Helping you to choose products and services, which meet your needs
Before you become a customer, we will:
- Give you clear information explaining the key features of the services and products you tell us you are interested in
- Give you information on any type of account facility which we offer and may suit your needs
- Tell you what information we need from you to prove your identity and address and to comply with legal and regulatory requirements, and
- Request for additional information about you and your family to build a database but such information can be furnished by you only if you wish and we will not compel you to give these information for opening your account.
We will tell you if we offer products and services in more than one way and tell you how to find out more about them.
Once you have chosen an account or service, we will tell you how it works.
When you open a single account or a joint account, we will give you information on your rights and responsibilities.
We recommend that you avail nomination facility offered on all deposit accounts, articles in safe custody and safe deposit vaults.
We will guide you how we will deal with deposits and other assets held with us in the name of a deceased person in the absence of nomination.
4. INTEREST RATES
You can find out about our interest rates by:
- Looking at the notices in our branches
- Looking on our website; or
- Asking our designated staff.
When you become a customer, we will give you information on the interest rates which apply to your accounts, and when we will pay interest on your deposits or debit interest on your loan accounts. We will also tell you our website address, and the other ways in which you can find out about changes in the interest rates.
We will explain how we apply interest to your account.
When we change the interest rates on our products, we will update the information on our website within three working days. Interest on savings accounts
At the time of opening of the account, we will inform you of the rate at which interest is paid on your savings deposits (presently, it is regulated by Reserve Bank of India), how it is calculated and its periodicity.
5. CHARGES
When you become a Customer, we will give you upfront details of any charges applicable to the products chosen by you.
You can also find out about our charges by:
- Asking our staff at the branch where you have your account
- Phoning our help-line or
- Looking on our website.
If we increase any of these charges or introduce a new charge, it will be notified at least 05 days before the revised charges are levied / become due.
We will tell you the charge for any other service or product before we provide that service or product, and at any time you ask.
We will give you details of any charges we levy for using ATMs.
6. TERMS AND CONDITIONS
When you become a customer or accept a product for the first time, we will give you the relevant terms and conditions for the service you have asked us to provide.
All written terms and conditions will be fair and will set out your rights and responsibilities clearly and in plain language. We will only use legal or technical language where necessary.
Changes to Terms and Conditions
When you become a customer, we will tell you how we will let you know / notify about changes to terms and conditions.
Normally, changes (other than interest rates) will be made with prospective effect giving notice of at least 05 days. If the changes are to your disadvantage, you may close the account at any time up to 30 days from the date of the notice without having to pay any extra charges or interest for doing this.
Changes in the interest rates on our products (deposits and advances) from time to time will be notified as per the bank’s policy/practice.
7. ADVERTISING AND MARKETING
We will make sure that all advertising and promotional material is clear, fair, reasonable and not misleading.
We will seek your specific consent for giving details of your name and address to any third party including other entities in our group, for marketing purposes.
We would like to provide you with the entire range of financial services products, some of which are our own products while some others are the products of our group/associate/entities or companies with whom we have tie-up arrangements. We will however tell you about our associate / group entities or companies having business tie-up arrangements with us and if you so desire, direct their staff / agents for marketing their products.
8. ACCOUNT OPERATIONS
Statements
To help you manage your account and check entries on it, we will give you account statements at regular intervals unless this is not appropriate type of account for the type of account you have (like an account where you have a passbook).
We will normally provide you with a statement periodically as per our policy. You can ask us to provide you with account statements more often than is normally available on your type of account, but there may be a charge for this service.
Clearing Cycle / Collection Services
We will tell you about the clearing cycle, including when you can withdraw money after lodging collection instruments and when you will start to earn interest.
We will give immediate credit to your account for outstation cheques lodged by you and will allow you to draw against such instrument(s) under collection as per prevailing RBI guidelines. (Presently instruments up to Rs.15,000/- tendered by customers operating accounts satisfactorily.)
We will pay interest on funds involved if collection is delayed beyond the normal period as stipulated by RBI.
Cash Transactions
You should count notes and ensure correctness before leaving the cash counter.
Avoid writing anything on the face of the notes and co-operate with us by remitting notes in unstapled / unstitched conditions as required under RBI’s clean Note Policy.
Direct debits and standing instructions
Cheques issued by you
We will keep original cheques paid from your account or copies, for such periods as required by law.
If, within a reasonable period after the entry has been made on your statement, there is a dispute about a cheque paid from your account, we will give you the cheque or a copy as evidence.
We will tell you how we will deal with unpaid cheques and out-of-date (stale) cheques.
10. PROTECTION
Confidentiality
We will treat all your personal information as private and confidential (even when you are no longer a customer). We will not reveal transaction details of your accounts to a third party, including entities in our group, other than in the following four exceptional cases when we are allowed to do
- If we have to give the information by law
- If there is a duty to the public to reveal the information
- If our interests require us to give the information (for example, to prevent fraud) but we will not use this as a reason for giving information about you or your accounts (including your name and address) to anyone else, including other companies in our group, for marketing purposes
- If you ask us to reveal the information, or if we have your permission to provide such information to our group/associate/entities or companies when we have tie-up arrangements for providing other financial service products.
11. WHAT YOU CAN DO TO PROTECT YOUR ACCOUNTS
This section is all about what you can do to help prevent your accounts being misused.
Communication Link
Please make sure you let us know as soon as possible when you change your:
- Name
- Address
- Phone number
Checking your account
We recommend that you check your statement or passbook . If there is an entry, which seems to be wrong, you should tell us as soon as possible so that we can sort it out.
If we need to investigate a transaction on your account you should co-operate with us and the police or any other authority, if we need to involve them.
Taking care
The care of your cheques, passbook, PINs and other security information is essential to help prevent fraud and protect your accounts. Please make sure that you follow the advice given below:
- Do not keep your cheque book and passbook together
- Do not keep the blank cheque leaves signed
If you send a cheque through the post, it will help to prevent fraud if you clearly write the name of the person you are paying the cheque to. Write such cheques with carbon on the reverse to avoid chemical alterations.
if you are paying a cheque into a bank account, always write on the cheque the name of the account holder (ABC Bank Account –XYZ). You should draw a line through unused space on the cheque so unauthorised person cannot add extra numbers or names.
Canceling payments
If you want to cancel a payment or series of payments you have authorized, you should do the following:
- To stop payment of a cheque or cancel standing instruction given, you must tell us in writing
- To cancel a direct debit, you can either tell the originator of the direct debit or tell us. We recommend you to do both.
It may not be possible to cancel payments if you do not give enough notice of your decision to cancel.
Liability for Losses
If you act fraudulently, you will be responsible for all losses on your account. If you act without reasonable care, and this causes losses, you may be responsible for them. (This may apply if you do not follow section 11.4)
12. LOANS AND ADVANCES
Before we lend you any money or increase your overdraft, or other borrowing, we will assess whether we feel you will be able to repay it.
If we offer you an overdraft, or an increase in your existing overdraft limit, we will tell you if your overdraft is repayable on demand or otherwise.
Wherever possible, reasons for rejection of loans will be conveyed to you.
13. FURTHER ASSISTANCE
Complaints / Grievances and Feedback / Suggestions
Internal procedures
If you want to make a complaint, we will tell you how to do this and what to do if you are not happy about the outcome. Our staff will help you with any questions you have.
Within two weeks of receiving your complaint, we will send you a written acknowledgement.
After examining the matter, we will send you our final or other response within eight weeks and will tell you how to take your complaint further if you are still not satisfied.
Banking Ombudsman Service and other avenues for redressal
Within 60 days of lodging a complaint with us, if you do not get a satisfactory response from us and you wish to pursue other avenues for redressal of grievances, you may approach Banking Ombudsman appointed by Reserve Bank of India under Banking Ombudsman Scheme 2002. Details of Banking Ombudsman are displayed in the branch notice boards. Our staff would explain the procedure in this regard.
Feedback and Suggestions
Please provide feedback on our services. Your suggestions will help us to improve our services.
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