Digitla lockout can cause anxiety to customers
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bluebay2014
All of a sudden, the benefit of a name like Elon Musk’s son “X” — without the accompanying alpha-numerics — becomes tangible. Almost aspirational.With a name like that, you could breeze through “kyc” (know your customer) drills that institutions private and otherwise require from you, repeatedly. There is no worry of your name being spelt differently from the way your parents may have intended to call you.Sometimes, it almost feels like there is a resistance movement at different institutions, as their representatives spell your name in the manner they are familiar with, in line with the region they hail from.So, if they are from Southern India, your name has a “h”, and if they are from the northern regions, the “h” is axed in your name — observations from personal experience.But the horror of it all comes alive when you have to digitally link all the government, private, identity and other details. That’s when the humble “h” can play havoc (with a capital “H”) — leading to anxiety-producing outcomes that can render 50-plus years of your existence as, well non-existent.Or, it can lock you out of your online account at the big beautiful bank that you have been with for close to three decades, two cities and multiple relationship managers.Digital strangleholdRecounting a “lived experience” here — no amount of documentation can rescue you when you are digitally locked out. Not even bank managers, it seems, can make a dogmatic digital system heel.Biometrics, is suggested, to bypass digital dogma.But that too has pitfalls — who owns the data, has access to it, and how fool-proof is the system? More fundamentally, why should a citizen provide biometric information at a private institution to prove identity? And in this case, for no fault on the customer’s part?Back to seeking answers on why the digital gateway locked a “privileged” (designated by the bank), white-haired, tax-paying customer out of her account of more than 20 years?Multiple reasons are extended by bank representatives, seemingly just as dumbstruck by the stubborn digital system. Maybe the spelling difference between multiple government cards (again, no fault of the customer)? Checked, addressed.Still no show. Maybe different addresses — account opened in a different city — a digital realisation not picked up last KYC? Now more documents are called for - to prove you’ve walked the streets of Mumbai for several years now.Finally, the Eureka moment. A helpful bank representative explains — possibly, the digital system reads three components in a name.Unwieldy namesHeaven help you, if your parents let their regional pride spill into your name to make it long, unwieldly and with three components — exacerbated by marriage that adds a fourth component. Oh! for the joy of having a name like X.But seriously, making a bank account digitally inaccessible to a customer because the bank’s system falls short — is a violation of a customer’s financial rights. Financial institutions should have fool-proof methods available at local branches to resolve a digital deadlock — where the head of a branch, for example, can check the customer’s Cibil score, record and defaults (or absence of it), and help the customer.This can be done with checks, counter-checks, and speed — if institutions put resources behind helping customers, rather than merely seeing them as targets to sell financial products.A banking ombudsman is useful. But a locally accessible person and a water-tight, yet simple approach is needed for customers.Otherwise, the digital “chakravyuh” (maze) ends up trapping honest customers, while crooked ones seemingly trapeze through it.Published on July 8, 2026
