10-05-2007, 03:59 PM
Noor Nabi Sheikh from Hyderabad cries that National Bank of Pakistan has recently increased locker rental by 600 percent. He says the locker facility it appears now is for profit earning. He wastes his time, energy and money on hopelessly requesting the ârelevant authorityâ to look into and enquire about this illegal increase.
Sometime early 1990s I raised the issue of locker rent increase with the Federal Ombudsman. The Bank (not NBP) contention was that the Bank incurs expenses on lockers. My contention was that the locker cabinet housing 50 small locker is purchased only once on maintenance of which nothing ever is incurred. My father has a locker perhaps for the last 45 years. Never even once he has ever been asked to vacate it for a day for cleaning, painting, re-fixing etc. No special staff except in about a dozen specific branches in whole of Pakistan is posted for lockers. The same usual staff deals with this subject. No special security steps are needed by the Bank on lockers as these are housed in the same strong room where bankâs currency and other documents are kept. Hearing pleas from both sides the Federal Ombudsman observed that the locker was not a routine usual service like bank draft issuance or any other accounting service but was just an incentive-cum-facility which a bank offered only to a few already its account holders. He ordered that no such increase as such was legal.
The Bank went on revision appeal. The revision plea was same that Bank incurs expenses on maintaining the locker. The ombudsman this time agreed to this plea and cancelled his earlier decision thus allowing the increase. But the Ombudsman very interestingly did not touch at all in his revised decision his earlier observation that locker was just an incentive given to only a few. In other words the Ombudsman later found locker was not an incentive but a profit earning item. It may be remembered that these lockers are used as a tool to increase the Banking deposits and are given only to those who deposit big sums as fixed deposits.
There is another element on this issue over which I struggled for about 20 years without any success. My contention is that Bank enjoys earning profits on the locker security deposit. A locker remains allotted for 20-40 years during which the purchasing value of security deposits when refunded becomes almost nil. If the Bank keeps on increasing rental then it should also give annual profit on the security deposit it kept. I took up this issue to dozens of so called consumer welfare organizations, NGOs, Ombudsman and also to SC as a public interest but never got any response from any quarter. I did not take up merely locker security deposit but inclusive of electricity, gas, phone security deposits too. I struggled with PTCL for return of my deposited security deposit of Rs. 400. Against Rs. 400 deposited in 1978 I got Rs. 13,000 plus in 2003. Now I am old, diabetic and has stopped struggle on this subject.
Appealing to the âconcernedâ authority which in this case is State Bank of Pakistan I think is just to loosen oneâs own self dignity and respect. SBP is perhaps the only monitoring agency in the world in whose eyes any financial institution can pick pocket or lot the ordinary man in any manner provided such institution has included in writing the tool and rate of such a pick pocketing. The SBP wizards have learnt a very good western lesson which west does not apply in its own territory namely the âprudential regulations and market economiesâ.
Sometime early 1990s I raised the issue of locker rent increase with the Federal Ombudsman. The Bank (not NBP) contention was that the Bank incurs expenses on lockers. My contention was that the locker cabinet housing 50 small locker is purchased only once on maintenance of which nothing ever is incurred. My father has a locker perhaps for the last 45 years. Never even once he has ever been asked to vacate it for a day for cleaning, painting, re-fixing etc. No special staff except in about a dozen specific branches in whole of Pakistan is posted for lockers. The same usual staff deals with this subject. No special security steps are needed by the Bank on lockers as these are housed in the same strong room where bankâs currency and other documents are kept. Hearing pleas from both sides the Federal Ombudsman observed that the locker was not a routine usual service like bank draft issuance or any other accounting service but was just an incentive-cum-facility which a bank offered only to a few already its account holders. He ordered that no such increase as such was legal.
The Bank went on revision appeal. The revision plea was same that Bank incurs expenses on maintaining the locker. The ombudsman this time agreed to this plea and cancelled his earlier decision thus allowing the increase. But the Ombudsman very interestingly did not touch at all in his revised decision his earlier observation that locker was just an incentive given to only a few. In other words the Ombudsman later found locker was not an incentive but a profit earning item. It may be remembered that these lockers are used as a tool to increase the Banking deposits and are given only to those who deposit big sums as fixed deposits.
There is another element on this issue over which I struggled for about 20 years without any success. My contention is that Bank enjoys earning profits on the locker security deposit. A locker remains allotted for 20-40 years during which the purchasing value of security deposits when refunded becomes almost nil. If the Bank keeps on increasing rental then it should also give annual profit on the security deposit it kept. I took up this issue to dozens of so called consumer welfare organizations, NGOs, Ombudsman and also to SC as a public interest but never got any response from any quarter. I did not take up merely locker security deposit but inclusive of electricity, gas, phone security deposits too. I struggled with PTCL for return of my deposited security deposit of Rs. 400. Against Rs. 400 deposited in 1978 I got Rs. 13,000 plus in 2003. Now I am old, diabetic and has stopped struggle on this subject.
Appealing to the âconcernedâ authority which in this case is State Bank of Pakistan I think is just to loosen oneâs own self dignity and respect. SBP is perhaps the only monitoring agency in the world in whose eyes any financial institution can pick pocket or lot the ordinary man in any manner provided such institution has included in writing the tool and rate of such a pick pocketing. The SBP wizards have learnt a very good western lesson which west does not apply in its own territory namely the âprudential regulations and market economiesâ.
