SRINAGAR : Banks are essentially the repositories of trust vested by the stakeholders especially investors and customers in their ability and organisation to maximize the stakeholders’ value through efficient delivery of its products and services. And in this context a continuous, healthy and vibrant banker-customer relationship assumes critical importance of which customer feedback is the vital part.

J&K Bank MD & CEO Baldev Prakash made these remarks while presiding over a customer-meet in Zonal Office Mumbai – held as part of the Bank’s massive customer-outreach under Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav program – in presence of Divisional Head (RoI) besides Zonal Head and other officers.

He further said, “Therefore, as part of Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav celebrations, we have undertaken a large country-wide customer outreach program, wherein the management will apprise you about the Bank’s performance and major milestones set by the Bank for enhancing the stakeholder value besides informing you about the initiatives that have been taken in recent past to improve the functioning of the Bank. Thereafter, we are all-ears to take your queries and listen to your valuable feedback not only to understand and resolve the issues involved but to capitalise on that feedback for the betterment of our services and facilities in future.”

“And your feedback helps us in sharpening our focus on ease-of-banking”, MD & CEO added.

Notably, the Bank organised a first-of-its-kind Bank-wide customer-meets across the country to apprise, listen, understand and resolve the issues faced by its clientele. Over 3000 valuable customers attended 30 such meetings conducted simultaneously across the country at Cluster, and Zonal levels of the Bank.

Welcoming the participants at their respective places, the Bank’s General Managers, Divisional Heads and Zonal Heads highlighted the need for continuity in Bank-customer communication and underscored the importance of feedback for achieving excellence in service delivery systems of the Bank. The speakers emphasized upon the symbiotic nature of relationship between the Bank and its customers and sought cooperation of the participants for realizing their own growth aspirations by expanding their businesses through the financial support of the Bank.

Reiterating their loyalty towards the Bank, the participants appreciated the grand effort and expressed hope that the Bank would meet their genuine expectations. They urged the Bank to continue the two-way communication in future as well to keep refreshing and deepening the strong relationship.

“We are a third-generation clients of this great institution that has served the people for more than eighty-four years. Our success is part of the larger tale of Bank’s achievements during all these years and we are very thankful to the Bank for its support in very difficult times like floods, Covid19 and other disruptions”, said Mir Waseem, MD Mir & Co in Srinagar on the occasion, adding, “We appreciate this great effort of the Bank to know and empathize with the customers’ concerns.”

“J&K Bank has played a motherly role by coming to our rescue during Covid19 disruption and we will never forget that. We have expressed our concerns and have full faith that the Bank will meet our expectations”, said Vishal Gupta, MD Upkar Rural Flour Mills Jammu.

The meetings started with a power-point presentation providing an overview of the major distinctions of the Bank, its business share in UTs of J&K, Ladakh and RoI, grievance redressal structure and remedial measures taken by the Bank for addressing customer grievances. While highlighting the features of Bank’s main deposit, retail loan products and major business loan schemes, the presentation also detailed the recent customer friendly initiatives like migration to Finacle-10, facilitation of settlement of Bad Loans, improving IT platforms for customer convenience and most importantly establishing full-fledged Contact Centre for Customer Support for addressing customers’ queries regarding loans, deposits besides registering their grievances with zero waiting time.

The participants were also sensitized about the transformation in the organizational structure through placement of General Managers for Jammu, ROI and Kashmir Division, opening of three new Clusters at Mohali, Lucknow, and Bengaluru, creation of dedicated marketing teams at Zonal/ Cluster Offices and establishment of 19 Large Credit Units (LCUs) for proper monitoring, swift follow-up and highly personalized services to large borrowers.