Accounts with ICICI are a nightmare, especially when they go dormant. One of mine went dormant, and I had to complete a round trip of 90 miles, produce passports and proof of address, and would you believe, make a statement of why I wanted the account reactivated - like I wasn't being reasonable in wanting access to my own money. The ICICI website reassuringly says something along the lines of "Your money in a dormant account will always be your property or if you die it will become part of your estate"... maybe they get customers dying of old age waiting for accounts to be reactivated.
More worrying is the fact that ICICI gave me no indication that the account had actually been closed, and I was given no warning that closure was imminent. The problem is that they have no concept of customer service, and the levels of beaurocracy within this Indian bank might be a new and interesting experience for customers of UK banks.
The other problem I've had related to the extreme length of time it takes to clear funds deposited to the current account. One over-the-counter deposit at an ICICI branch took nearly 2 months - yes, months, to clear because of some admin error in the bank, and a deposit made to ICICI through my Lloyds bank took several weeks. To cap it all, the Visa debit card was not accepted in India.
I'm sticking with them for one more try, as I think things can only get better, but my advice to anyone considered starting up with them would be to think carefully, and be prepared for advantages to be cancelled out by problems in managing the accounts.
0 comments