SIX MONTHLY BANK STATEMENTS

[javed]

Against my PLS Account with National Bank of Pakistan, Main Branch Karachi for the last 6-7 years every year twice I have to perform a ritual first to write to the Branch informing them about non receipt of my six monthly statement and thereafter finally to the President of the Bank. During these 6-7 years except for once or twice I have never received the original statement at its own but only copies after reminders over reminder. On establishment of the Banking Mohtasib as is habit of we the ordinary citizens to raise our hope on each new hope given to us, I approached the Mohtasib. My understanding of the ombudsman system universally is that a mohtasib sees the complaint, seeks defendant department’s comments etc and finally issues his written Verdict which invariably contains brief of the complaint, views of defendant agency, after counter rejoinder views, his own observation on the whole issue and finally his decision. The banking Mohtasib merely advised me the name of a senior VP of the Bank to whom in future I should write directly if need be. What happened to my complaint and what was the outcome of Ombudsman’s investigation on the issue namely if my complaint was correct or wrong, if the bank was found on fault or not etc I never knew. That in other word to me meant the banking bureaucracy got escaped (and of course got protected which can be judged from the fact that the said SVP never ever attend to even reference of ombudsman advice was given. Of course due to my own mistake my wrong bank account was notified to some companies who kept on sending the Dividends on my said wrong account noted with them. As per banking policy all such Dividends or cheques received in a wrong beneficiary name or account are bound to be returned back to the sender companies. None of these companies confirm if they got back those Dividends warrants. When I write to the Branch or the concerned SVP no response is given. My statement for the period ending 31 December 2006 has still not come against which my request to the President NBP has fallen on deaf ears. The current one for the period ending 30 June 2007 has also not been received. Though the record of every bank and every branch in Pakistan will show six monthly statements having been timely dispatched to all the account holders but 80-90% of those never reach. It is really a very interesting phenomena that approximately 90% all sort of mail (letters, phone bills etc) safely do reach to the addressees and hardly about 10% gets lost. But more interestingly approximately 90% only bank statements in the country get lost in mail and approximately 10% do reach. Is it not strange to be included in Genuine Book of Record. No authority whatsoever, may it be the demised Banking council, state bank, the federal ombudsman (in the past) or the Banking Mohtasib etc has ever taking real serious interest in the matter. Perhaps the SC which is taking note of public interest issues may find some time on this issue. I challenge that such an investigation authority may pick up one Branch each of its own choice of National Bank in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad and pick up at random 25 PLS accounts from each Branch and visit the account holders to find if they are regularly receiving these six monthly statements. My father a retired getting pension through NBP having spent 40 years in service on my question that where was his six monthly statement stared at me saying “Son, that system has more than 15-20 years been abolished”. Twice a year every Branch “shows” in its books an expense on postage for these six monthly statements and each time this amount is a big “personal income in the pockets”.