The Brave Pedestrian

9th October, 2016: A lot of HDFC Bank customers are having a bad experience. Some are even having nightmarish experiences... and it's all thanks to the fine art of glibly selling them financial instruments and other stuff they don't need. One friend who wrote to me after reading my recent article about how HDFC Bank routinely abuses it's customer's trust and fiduciary relationship , saying, "Krish, your gripe about HDFC Bank exceeding the limits of fiduciary relationship is absolutely correct. But why pick on HDFC alone? I get similar spam mails from ICICI, Kotak, etc. Upon complaining, I was told to read the last line of these mails and unsubscribe if I did not want to receive such mails. " My reply to his query: " I picked HDFC because I have experience of its activities at first hand. But I also wrote about SBI Mutual and ICICI Bank in that article." And then my friend wrote: " Here's a promo mail from AXIS Bank."...

7th October, 2016: Imagine you are having a gynaec examination. With his rubber-gloved fingers inside you, the gynaec starts a casual chat about why you should buy his home-grown brand of condoms and intimate products. Creepy? Yeah, well, but that's how HDFC Bank and other private-sector banks work. Actually, HDFC Bank is like if your gynaec collects real-time information about when and with whom you have sex, what kind of sex you are habituated to, exactly when you menstruate, what kind of lingerie and sanitary pads you are currently wearing, etc. and then this gynaec goes and hires a bunch of MBAs and college freshers, calls them "Relationship Managers", lets them hang around his clinic pretending to be gynaecologists themselves till you start feeling comfortable enough to tell them about your intimate problems. Then your gynaec goes and gives these relationship managers access to your information on their computer screens, with monthly targets for selling you co...