Wednesday, November 20, 2013

VenuG Presents: Why Bharatiya Mahila Bank? Chidiya Rani, Badi Sayani, Yeh to Papa ki bhi Nani. :)

Good Morning
You suck blogger!!!
I'm writing this all over again.
Just when, I had finished this post,
You deleted everything.
I did a wonderful job,
But looking at the research I did,
For this post,
I'm not grumbling,
As my earlier post on NPA,
Is  a hit, so , this one too shall be.
Since, I'm an insider, with 27 years of hardcore Banking exposure,
 At levels starting from Rural, to international business, to Infotech, from treasury & international banking, to personal banking, retail to wholesale, from cash management, to resource management to logistics.
At this very moment I deal with supplies, to eastern region, to all eastern States, except Udisha. The support of resources for inclusive Banking & financial inclusion.
Here it goes.
The real subject,
Shall come, after a very long prologue.
End with an epilogue.

Prologue
=======







Why Bharatiya Mahila Bank?
Referred to as BMB hereinafter

Good Morning.
I have 104° Fever.
Today is 20th November, 2013.
I login to Twitter.
The first tweet that I read is by Chidiya Rani.
A.K.A. http://twitter.com/SomeBirdie
@SomeBirdie

Which reads like
*****

" @SomeBirdie: I'm a feminist but to me, Bharatiya Mahila Bank does not make much sense. It is nothing more than a normal Bank with all female employees."
*****

YES CHIDIYA RANI, IT VERY MUCH DOES! ITS THE NEED,
OF THE HOUR, I SHALL DEAL WHY LATER.




The tweet struck me, like a lightning here was someone, a woman, a feminist,
a career woman, originally from Nainital hills, educated, from Delhi, now married,
and living in Bengaluru, and who has just started working again, after a brief gap.
Asking, why a uni-sex bank, can't serve a female client??!!

Me, I'm a PSU Banker, a student of commerce, Studied Money, Banking & Finance, from 1975-76, Xth Commerce, 1976-77 XIth Commerce, 1977-81,
B.Com, 1981-83 M.Com(Accountancy & Busines Statistics, with Banking & Economics) & 1991-94, M.B.A.(Finance) again with Banking, a Career Banker,
with 28 years of service, 1985-2013(present) 3 years rural service, a CAIIB from Indian Institute of Bankers & a Diploma in Banking, from The University
of Rajasthan, Jaipur. Now, that I'm working for a PSU Banker, was not sufficient enough, for me, to react to react to her tweets . I work with Syndicate Bank,
the history of which in itself is inclusive.
See this, why & how we started. And we still, are, THE ONLY BANK, WITH ITS HEADQUARTERS IN A VILLAGE!!! Manipal in Dakshina Kannada.
    We are not only inclusive, but also proactive towards farmers & rural folk, women, youth, our motto is "SMALL MANS BIG BANK. We started, our first all women branch, in Gandhinagar, Bangalore, not now, but in 1962!!!
see link.
We started opening all women branches, left, right, & centre, employed a lot of women, in Matunga, Mumbai, Sethi Colony, Jaipur, INA Colony, Delhi.

At one time, we had 10 all women branches. Our Sethi Colony, Jaipur, branch, had only one male employee, Shyam Lal, he still works at our Regional Office Jaipur. Two of the women staff, of that branch, Neelu Mathur & Sandhya Goel, about to retire, still call
him Shyamu, he was a small boy then. Though, all those branches, are now, mixed branches no longer, all women branches. except our Matunga Main,
Mumbai Branch!
Why? Later.


PS: THIS IS NOT ABOUT SYNDICATE BANK, BUT AN INTRODUCTION , WAS NEEDED, for,
letting you know, why, the 4 Tweets by @SomeBirdie forced me to write this post!
I'm speaking & writing this, as an individual. This must not be under any circumstances
be considered , the official position of the Bank. This is for academic purposes, &
in no way, should be considered, as my official position. I act in my official capacity,
as per the policies of my employer.


Then She tweets
*****

" @SomeBirdie: They could have made a rule for all banks to have atleast 1 branch in each city with all female employees. That would have made more sense."

*****
Again, as I mentioned above, there were all ladies branches, but then, we had to convert them into mixed gender branches! Why? We found, customers, of that area, were mostly male, there was a tranport nagar, nearby, and most of the customers, were related to truck & transport operators & their employees. Women staff & officers, getting married, and getting transferred, lack of suffiecient female personell. Remember, this was 1960-1980, my own sister Joined SBBJ, via BSRB(State bank recruitment board 1st exam) in 1978 and she was a minoity, She and another friend of hers, joining, United India Insurance company, & another friend, joining State Bank of Indore, were a few exceptional cases, that I knew of in the late 1970s, mind you, I knew over 200 women then, of which, except the group of 6, that my sister belonged to, everyone else, married, and, never took a career!!! It was much later, when I graduated, 15-20% women joined workforce. I remember, in my Class of 83 in The University, I had 7 senior & 6 female classmates, in a combined class of 120, out of the 13, only 4 took up career. In my Pribationer Batch, there were 6/960 women! Plus, licensing regime, was such, if there was a branch, in Sethi Colony, which was all female manned, we could NOT open another all male branch, not only us, but no other bank could! So, the early experiments,
of all female branches failed to stay for long. Mind you, the experiment in itself was a success, as we could canvass a substantial business, from housewives, female professionals, out of these all female branches, which is one of my moot points, Why, BMB , is needed. Women, especially for borrowal accounts, feel comfortable, dealing with women, and overawed by men!!!


*****
@SomeBirdie: When there's no discrimination made b/w men & women in the existing banking system, y create something new? Seems like an election gimmick.
***--


*****

@SomeBirdie: If they really wanted to help rural women they should have opened all-female-employee based new branches of current state banks in villages.
*****





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