aditya kumar's weblog

Though I have always believed that Indians have been, on the whole, more open to changes related to technology, I have also found out how various (Indian) organizations, which would have otherwise benefited from people using more technology, have failed to realise this and have lost a lot of money and goodwill, on the way.


I regularly use the Netbanking service of the bank that I bank with. Today when I accessed their website, instead of the usual login page, it showed me a message that promised a “host of new features” and gave me a brief account of each one of them. Everything alright except for the fact that since they were “busy”, “incorporating” those features in their website, I would not be able to access my account till the 22nd of December. That is tomorrow and I am not sure for how long this message has been online.


I can’t imagine this is real because these guys don’t appear a wee bit apologetic about it. Whats worse is that when you sign up, these banks portray Netbanking facility as a “substitute” for visiting the bank. So in effect this is equivalent to “closing” the bank for those number of days. And there is no apology whatsoever. To me, this is an indication of how strongly they feel about this mode of banking and how seriously they take it, nevermind those “new features”.

And the talk about “being busy” while “incorporating the features”. Maintenance of a website is not like the maintenance of a bike or a car, where you can’t use the vehicle until the job is done. It’s more like filling the air in your vehicle’s tyres while the engine is running. In effect, during the upgrade, certain features might be unavailable, but that is all. In websites (web applications) that handle data of a much larger magnitude than of a typical bank, the maintenance job never takes more than a few hours. And in here in this case, the same thing has gone on for more than a day.

Update:In a bid to give a quality Banking experience, things may have to be double checked and it could take a while. The Service Quality team took the initiative of talking at length about the whole issue with me. I must mention that they promptly addressed this issue by explaining me why it took so long, the causes that were responsible for it and it gave me a picture of their commitment to their customers for a better quality of service.