ICICI Bank SB account and Incentives

ICICI Bank is always on the lead to do all wrong things and it is high time RBI does something to rein this bank with severe warning and followed by penalty in case it does not heed to the warning. ICICI bank will make Reserve Bank to learn new regulations if not properly watched and monitored.What the bank does is to reward  savings bank account holders  with some incentives in the form of some points for using SB accounts for various transactions and the points one earns get accumulated with some agency called Pay back which has links with many a merchant establishments.These establishments also add some points if shown pay Back Cards on the purchases made by the customers from them. This is only a trap to attract Customers to banks and merchant establishments and this encourages greedy pricing of products and take away any ethics if at all followed these days by many establishments.The fact remains that one cannot easily en cash any of the points earned in Pay back card as merchant establishments give all possible excuses and fail to honour what is promised under this scheme.What ever it is, RBI has to ensure that Banks do only banking business in a traditional manner ie;accepting deposits and lending of money.If any incentives are linked  other than efficient customer service to these normal banking transactions, there is something seriously wrong and need to be nipped in the bud itself. Otherwise RBI will have to face an embarrassing situation.The banks can better  offer higher rate of interest on SB accounts which stands at 4% even after deregulation of SB interest by the Reserve Bank a couple of years back The banks should innovate healthy practices, introduce products to attract savings and encourage constructive competition. 

Dr.T.V.Gopalakrishnan

This comment is in response to an article Now open Savings Bank accounts and earn reward points that appeared in ET dated 19/62013)