I AM an octogenarian maintaining my account at a bank in cantonment area for the last 23 years. The performance of the bank and services rendered by staff to clients used to be fairly satisfactory, but they have started to deteriorate now.

I visited the branch recently to withdraw some cash. There was no place in the bank to sit because all the seats had been occupied. There was no counter for senior citizens either. After a little wait, I managed to pull a chair that was vacated by someone else.

There was a long wait at the cash counter, and it was not because of the rush in the bank at the time. It was basically due to the deployment of a single staff member at the counter. There used to be four staffers till recently. How can one person handle customers coming for deposits, with- drawals, pay orders, utility bills, etc?

When I inquired about the reason, I was told that certain changes had been made, and now only one person is desig- nated to handle the customers. This is actually quite ridiculous.

All over the world, customer service happens to be the core activity of banking systems, but in Pakistan, even large banks that make huge profits only create problems for the customers.

Lt-Col (retd) Mukhtar Ahmed Butt
Karachi

Published in Dawn, December 2nd, 2023