After a personal visit to the local SBI branch and a couple of hours ooga-booga with SMS and email OTPs on janky data roaming for US phone, I’ve finally restored my online access to indian bank account. Indian banking bureaucracy has way more advanced bugginess than US
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Not quite… in most cases in India, the system is Vogonish but the people are really nice and genuinely committed to getting you served, at least if you’re middle class and up
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You're right, they've massively changed in the last decade. I'm thinking of government offices, which most of these banks were like back in the day.
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I had an ordinary sbi account as a student in the 90s. Service was fine then as well. The real nightmare was the old license raj. Torture to even figure out who to bribe and at what rate. Though once you paid the bribe they were nice.
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The best thing actor Kamal Haasan did few years ago was releasing this bribe rate card (as part of his anti-corruption campaign for elections). It's been a handy guide for negotiations compared to going in blind.
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I paid Rs. 500 for an unnecessary “IT clearance not required” certificate when I first went to the US because at the time there were rumors of airport emigration staff shaking down students going abroad by demanding that certificate.
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The bribe was paid through obscure back channels (my dad knew a fixer) but I had to go collect the certificate in person. The collector guy was very nice to me and put up the theater of asking me the required clearance questions.
This was Bihar. In the end nobody asked for it at the airport.
But my passport app in Bombay went through smoothly, including police verification, with no bribes needed. But again got an unnecessary proof of address (not really needed for hostel residents with student id)
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