Good bank. Review on ABN AMRO Group

ABN AMRO Bank has bought over Bank of America, in India. The size of operations of this bank in India was not too big before they bought out Bank of America. In fact, their retail banking received a big boost from the buy out of BOA. I have been dealing with this bank since 1998, always as a corporate customer.

I previously dealt with them while I was in Chennai and now I am dealing with them in Delhi on behalf of my current employer. I have also dealt with two more foreign banks, ANZ Grindlays and Citibank and find this bank better. Neither of my employers had availed of any loans from this bank, hence I am not qualified to talk about bank charges or the lending rates. However, I would like to focus on the service aspects in this review.

Their strengths in my opinion are:

1) Customer Focus: The staff members of this bank have a strong commitment towards customer relationship. Their relationship managers in Chennai and Delhi made it a point to be regularly in touch with us to check out what services they could provide to us. Once in a while, they used to drop in to check out if we were satisfied with their services and to get feedback on how to improve it. We even receive a call from their treasury manager on a daily basis to inform us the prevailing exchange rates of the major currencies and their view on future trends. Though we ourselves monitor the currency movements closely, this gesture on their part shows the concern for customers.

2) Flexibility: There were two occasions when we urgently needed to take a forward cover for Pound Sterling due to a sharp decline in the currency. Completing paperwork would have lost us 20 - 30 minutes. This delay could have cost us a few million Rupees. But, these guys were flexible enough to act on our oral request, though we sent them the required documents within the next thirty minutes. There was also an occasion were they similarly obliged regarding our current account.

3) Good Forex Conversion Rates: For any foreign exchange transaction, most of the banks charge upwards of 3-4 paise per Dollar, depending on the quantum of transactions. ABN AMRO charges us just 2 paise from the interbank rate.

4) Knowledgeable Staff: These guys have been thorough professionals, when it came to operations. We had opened and renewed several bank guarantees with ABN. The transactions went very smoothly without loss of time. Their treasury fellows sure knew their job as we did all kinds of transactions with them like interest swaps, cross currency forward covers and currency swaps.

There are however certain areas where they are not so strong and can improve:

1) Small Branch Network: They have presence in just the major cities of India and not many branches in each city. This can be particularly irritating if one is to transfer money to a smaller city, as they will have to get the transfer syndicated through some other bank leading to some loss of time and higher bank charges on account of two intermediaries.

2) Few ATMs: It does not have more than 4-5 ATM’s in any city and this can be a major hassle in a big city like Delhi or Mumbai.

Their commitment to India cannot be disputed in view of their takeover of BOA. Hence, I am optimistic that with the kind of customer focus they have exhibited, they will improve in these two areas in time to come.