Branches | Performance Highlights

Banker's Fair Practices Code

This is a voluntary Code, which sets standards of fair banking practices for member banks of Indian Banks’ Association to follow when they are dealing with individual customers. In the Code, ‘you’ denotes the customer and ‘we’ the NAINITAL BANK LTD the customer deals with. It provides valuable guidance to you for your day-to-day operations. The Code applies to:

• current, savings and all other deposit accounts

• Pension, and other accounts etc. operated as agents of RBI/Government

• collection and remittance services offered by the banks

• loans and overdrafts

• third party products offered through our network.

We promise to:

a. Act fairly and reasonably in all our dealings with you by:

• meeting the commitments and standards in this Code, for the products and services we offer, and in the procedures and practices our staff follow

• making sure our products and services meet relevant laws and regulations

• our dealings with you will rest on ethical principles of integrity and transparency.

b.  Help you to understand how our financial products and services work by,

• giving you information about them in plain Hindi and/or English and/or the local language

• explaining their financial implications and

• helping you choose the one that meets your needs.

c. Deal quickly and sympathetically with things that go wrong by:

• correcting mistakes quickly

• handling your complaints quickly

• telling you how to take your complaint forward if you are still not satisfied and

• reversing any bank charges that we apply due to our mistake.

     d.  Publicize this Code, put it on our website and have copies available for

          you on request

Helping you to choose products and services, which meet your needs

Before you become a customer, we will:

• give you clear information explaining the key features of the services and products you tell us you are interested in

• give you information on any type of account facility which we offer and may suit your needs

• tell you what information we need from you to prove your identity and address and to comply with legal and regulatory requirements, and

• request for additional information about you and your family to build a database but such information can be furnished by you only if you wish and we will not compel you to give these information for opening your account.

We will tell you if we offer products and services in more than one and tell you how to find out more about them.

Once you have chosen an account or service, we will tell you how it works.

When you open a single account or a joint account, we will give you information on your rights and responsibilities.

We recommend that you avail nomination facility offered on all deposit accounts, articles in safe custody and safe deposit vaults.

We will guide you how we will deal with deposits and other assets held with us in the name of a deceased person in the absence of nomination.

You can find out about our interest rates by:

·          looking at the notices in our branches

·          phoning our branches

·          looking on our website; or

·          asking our designated staff.

-When you become a customer, we will give you information on the interest rates which apply to your accounts, and when we will pay interest on your deposits or debit interest on your loan accounts. We will also tell you our website address, our help line numbers and the other ways in which you can find out about changes in the interest rates.

-We will give information on Bank Bench Mark Prime Lending Rates (BPLR) and about the maximum spread over BPLR that we would charge from the borrower.

-We will explain how we apply interest to your account.

-When we change the interest rates on our products, we will update the information  through media or by displaying on the notice boards at branches and our website within three working days. Such information shall also be readily available at branches for your ready reference.

-At the time of opening of the account, we will inform you of the rate at which interest is paid on your savings deposits (presently, it is regulated by Reserve Bank of India), how it is calculated and its periodicity.

When you become a Customer, we will give you upfront details of any charges applicable to the service/ products chosen by you.

You can also find out about our charges by:

• asking our staff at the branch where you have your account

• Phoning our branches or

• looking on our website.

If we increase any of these charges or introduce a new charge, it will be notified effective date/s of the revised charges.

We will tell you the charge for any other service or product before we provide that service or product, and at any time you ask.

-When you become a customer or accept a product for the first time, we will give you the relevant terms and conditions for the service you have asked us to provide.

-All written terms and conditions will be fair and will set out your rights and responsibilities clearly and in plain language. We will only use legal or technical language where necessary.

-When you become a customer, we will tell you how we will let you know / notify about changes to terms and conditions.

-Normally, changes (other than interest rates) will be made with prospective effect. If the changes are to your disadvantage, you may close the account at any time up to 30 days from the date of the notice without having to pay any extra charges or interest for doing this.

-Changes in the interest rates on our products (deposits and advances) from time to time will be notified as per the bank’s policy/practice.

- We will make sure that all advertising and promotional material is clear, fair, reasonable and not misleading.

-We will seek your specific consent for giving details of your name and address to any third party including our shareholder/s or any other entities, for marketing purposes.

-We would like to provide you with the entire range of financial services products, some of which are our own products while some others are the products of our group/associate/entities or companies with whom we have tie-up arrangements. We will however tell you about our associate / group entities or companies having business tie-up arrangements with us and if you so desire, direct their staff / agents for marketing their products.

ACCOUNTING PRACTICES/Collection Services

-The Bank would provide Statement of Accounts, at regular intervals, unless not found necessary by you. The     Pass Book of related accounts shall also be provided to you. 

-The Bank would notify relevant due dates for application of agreed interest, penal interest, default interest, and charges if they are not mentioned in the loan applications, documents or correspondence. 
 

-The Bank would notify in advance any change in accounting practices that would affect the customer, before implementation. 

-Bank will tell you about clearing cycle, time up to which instruments could be accepted for local clearing and when you can withdraw money after lodging collection.

-We will give immediate credit to your account for outstation cheques ledge by you and will allow you to draw against such instrument (s) under collection as per prevailing guidelines. (Presently instrument upto Rs. 15000/- tendered by customer running the account satisfactorily).

-We will pay interest on funds involved if collection is delayed the normal period as stipulate RBI.

Statements
-To help you manage your account and check entries on it, we will give you account statements at regular intervals unless this is not appropriate type of account for the type of account you ahve (like an account where you have a passbook).

-We will normally provide you with a statement periodically as per our policy. You can ask us to provide you with account statements more often than is normally available on your type of account, but there may be a charge for this service.

Clearing Cycle / Collection Services
-We will tell you about the clearing cycle, including when you can withdraw money after lodging collection instruments and when you will start to earn interest.

We will give immediate credit to your account for outstation cheques lodged by you and will allow you to draw against such instrument(s) under collection as per prevailing RBI guidelines. (Presently instruments up to Rs.15,000/- tendered by customers operating accounts satisfactorily.)

We will pay interest on funds involved if collection is delayed beyond the normal period as stipulated by RBI.

Cash Transactions

-You should count notes and ensure correctness before leaving the cash counter.

-We will display in all our branches about any type of charges levied for deposit of currency notes packets numbering beyond prescribed packets or about any type of restrictions or facility on acceptance of unsorted, soiled defaced notes etc. However, we shall abide by the prevalent RBI guidelines in this regard.

-Avoid writing anything on the face of the notes and co-operate with us by remitting notes in unstapled / unstitched conditions as required under RBI’s clean Note Policy.

-Direct debits and standing instructions
 

We will act upon mandates given by you for direct debits (say ECS) and other standing instructions.

Cheques issued by you

-We will keep original cheques paid from your account or copies, for such periods as required by law.

-If, within a reasonable period after the entry has been made on your statement, there is a dispute about a cheque paid from your account, we will give you the cheque or a copy as evidence.

-We will tell you how we will deal with unpaid cheques and out-of-date (stale) cheques.

-Accounts operated/services rendered as agents of Government and RBI (applicable only to banks authorized to handle the business)

Confidentiality
-We will treat all your personal information as private and confidential (even when you are no longer a customer). -We will not reveal transaction details of your accounts to a third party, to any entity, other than in the following four exceptional cases, when we are allowed to do

• If we have to give the information by law

• If there is a duty to the public to reveal the information

• If our interests require us to give the information (for example, to prevent fraud) but we will not use this as a reason for giving information about you or your accounts (including your name and address) to anyone else, including other companies in our group, for marketing purposes

• If you ask us to reveal the information, or if we have your permission to provide such information to our group/associate/entities or companies when we have tie-up arrangements for providing other financial service products.

Wherever we have installed CCTV for close surveillance as part of security arrangements, the same will be indicated.

This section is all about what you can do to help prevent your accounts being misused.

Checking your account
-We recommend that you check your statement or passbook regularly. If there is an entry, which seems to be wrong, you should tell us as soon as possible so that we can sort it out.

-If we need to investigate a transaction on your account you should co-operate with us and the police or any other authority, if we need to involve them.

Taking care
The care of your cheques, passbook, cards, and other security information is essential to help prevent fraud and protect your accounts. Please make sure that you follow the advice given below:

• Do not keep your cheque book and Pan book together

• Do not keep the blank cheque leaves signed

• Do not allow anyone else to use your card, , password or other security information

• Never give your account details password or other security information to anyone unless you know who they are and why they need them

If you send a cheque through the post, it will help to prevent fraud if you clearly write the name of the person you are paying the cheque to. Write such cheques with carbon on the reverse to avoid chemical alterations.

if you are paying a cheque into a bank account, always write on the cheque the name of the account holder (ABC Bank Account –XYZ). You should draw a line through unused space on the cheque so unauthorised person cannot add extra numbers or names.

Canceling payments
If you want to cancel a payment or series of payments you have authorized, you should do the following:

• To stop payment of a cheque or cancel standing instruction given, you must tell us in writing

• To cancel a direct debit, you can either tell the originator of the direct debit or tell us. We recommend you to do both.

It may not be possible to cancel payments if you do not give enough notice of your decision to cancel.

Liability for Losses
-If you act fraudulently, you will be responsible for all losses on your account. If you act without reasonable care, and this causes losses, you may be responsible for them.

-Before we lend you any money or increase your overdraft, credit card limit or other borrowing, we will assess whether we feel you will be able to repay it.

-If we offer you an overdraft, or an increase in your existing overdraft limit, we will tell you if your overdraft is repayable on demand or otherwise.

-The reasons for rejection of loans will be conveyed to you.

Complaints / Grievances and Feedback / Suggestions

Internal procedures
-If you want to make a complaint, we will tell you how to do this and what to do if you are not happy about the outcome. Our staff will help you with any questions you have.

-Within two weeks of receiving your complaint, we will send you a written acknowledgement.

-After examining the matter, we will send you our final or other response within eight weeks and will tell you how to take your complaint further if you are still not satisfied.

Banking Ombudsman Service and other avenues for redressal
-Within 60 days of lodging a complaint with us, if you do not get a satisfactory response from us and you wish to pursue other avenues for redressal of grievances, you may approach Banking Ombudsman appointed by Reserve Bank of India under Banking Ombudsman Scheme 2002. Details of Banking Ombudsman are displayed in the branch notice boards. Our staff would explain the procedure in this regard.

Feedback and Suggestions
-Please provide feedback on our services. Your suggestions will help us to improve our services.

We have a ‘Nodal Officer’ to ensure compliance of the Code. Our internal auditing procedures make sure we meet the Code.

Standing Committee to Monitor the Code
A Standing Committee consisting of a panel of three reputed persons with banking background will monitor “Bankers’ Fair Practice Code”. The Standing Committee will operate from the office of Indian Banks’ Association.

If you have any enquiries about this Code, you may contact the

Indian Banks’ Association
Stadium House, Block II & III
Veer Nariman Road,
Mumbai 400 020
Email: ibastadium@vsnl.net
Website: www.iba.org.in 

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