The amalgamation of Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank into Bank of Baroda (BoB) is one of the most historic decisions for Indian banking industry. As a result, it is extremely important that the management of BoB organizes awareness campaigns all across the country to ensure that customers feel assured and safe.
Anyone who has followed banking mergers would know that such developments make customers really anxious. There are so many senior citizens in Goa itself, who prefer going to a bank branch to withdraw cash and avoid using ATMs. Such customers depend upon the bank staff for their day to day needs.
To ensure that customers, including senior citizens, understand the implications of amalgamation, it is a must that BoB organizes camps to make them aware. To give credit where it is due, it must be acknowledged that BoB has come out with an arrangement keeping in mind the interests of customers of Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank.
Recently, the bank’s management informed that customers of Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank will be able to avail all the services just the way they used to do earlier. For the next 12-18 months until the technology integration is completed, even the name-boards outside Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank will remain as they were. The only difference is that at the bottom of name-boards “Now Bank of Baroda” is added.
Customers of Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank will be able to use their existing cheque books, debit cards, netbanking and mobile banking for the next 12 to 18 months. After this, once tech integration is done, customers of the other two banks will have to surrender their cheque books, etc to BoB to get new cheque books.
The management of BoB must train the staff of all the three banks to pass on this message to customers from today itself so that they are mentally prepared. Merely sending text messages and emails won’t do because a large section of customers depend upon physical interface with bank staff for their banking needs.
Wherever the branches of BoB, Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank are, they must start spreading awareness so there is no confusion or panic later. There have been instances in the past when banks were not professional in spreading information, which caused lot of inconvenience to customers. Such instances must not happen again.
It must be realized that customers are at the heart of the banking sector. It is BoB’s duty to pass on the correct information to them and prepare them for the amalgamation by all means possible. And, if BoB is successful, it will only make it a more robust bank than it already is.
