It was a warm humid morning of 5th of June 1995 when I landed in Surat branch of J&K Bank, to join the J&K Bank family, with just a couple of memories of the bank as a customer or just a casual visitor.
My first encounter with this institution was way back in the early 80s, and that day was also from the month of June, it was also a very hot day, I along with my uncle entered the Shalamar Road Branch which was in that red coloured building opposite the Police Station City Chowk and at present that famous police station building is replaced with a Modern super bazaar parking slot.
I entered the bank and there was no electricity, a cashier sitting on the floor in the light of a candle without his shirt was counting cash in the cash cabin, which was more of a cage than a work place. And this was my first encounter with J&K Bank.
Time passed, I did my graduation in 1991 and all of a sudden I found myself struggling for a job with Governor Rule in place and all kind of recruitment was dried up. Then it was a blessing, when in October 1994 I found a recruitment advertisement from J&K Bank in a local newspaper.
I applied, worked hard made some preparations for the competition and appeared in the written test, cleared it and got a call to appear in the interview and finally I was in. And my journey started with the bank with my first posting at Surat. And since then I have worked in different branches at different places apart from Jammu I had postings in Thanamandi and Doda during hard days and outside the state, I gave my postings at Surat, Bangalore, and Ambala.
In a couple of years since joining this bank I don’t know when I fell in love with this institution. Learned a variety of lessons, the banking is a general concept but the most important thing I learnt is customer service ‘Speak I Am Listening’ & ‘Express I Am Listening’. And being a manager I learnt the most difficult thing of handling the manpower put on my disposal for the execution of services.
Since 1995 I saw a sea of changes in the banking scenario. From ledgers to computers, a long but sweet journey, we shifted from manual ledgers to Nelco to Kala’s to Bancs 2K and finally to Finacle. And now we have Core Banking Solution CBS on just one click of a mouse.
During all these years the banking norms also got transformed from 365 days NPA norms to 181 days to 91days to 30 days and finally, we will be adopting to real-time NPA norms. And we at J&K Bank are no exception to this transformation, which we adopted as per the guidelines set by our regulator RBI.
Once these stringent norms which are at par with international standards were introduced, some of the business houses who were not following the set guidelines in principle started feeling the heat and all of a sudden the country saw an abrupt increase in NPAs.
We at J&K Bank were also not an exception but at the same time we wrote a history in record time under able leadership and hardworking and dedicated workforce we turned around our fortunes and in less than a year we came out from reds to a green and clean balance sheet.
Apart from professional banking I feel proud of being a partof this institution where we are into social banking. You will hardly see abank these days where banking hours start with the disbursal of old agepension, migrant relief, salaries to J&K state government employees,wherein return to our services we earn blessings. And this has become our USP.
With time we had also adapted to all the e-Channelfacilities and all the e-products are in our basket which anyone can expectfrom any of the international banks. ‘Phone Pay Loan’ the name in itself speaksthat you don’t have to go to the bank instead just apply on your phone and loanamount is credited in your account. ‘Mehandi Deposit’ another product forempowering the girl child.
As for J&K Bank, it is a brand, and we are the brand ambassadors of our state, the first and the most successful listed company on the stock exchange. We were, we are and we will always stand behind our customers in their thick & thin.
As for my memory goes we were there during the earthquake of 2005, we were there during the floods of 2014 even we didn’t hesitate in extending our helping hand to the flood victims of Kerala flood. We have always stood to our motto ‘SERVING TO EMPOWER’.
But it’s quite unfortunate and painful when some of the hatemongers and confusion creators on the directions of their masters try to defameour beloved institution without even knowing the ABC of banking.
Sometimes the borrowers fail to repay the loans but thatdoesn’t mean that we compromise on our credit appraisals under any kind ofpressure. We usually adopt the following steps for healthy credit dispensation:
1. Selection of a developing and long lasting sector/aviable economic activity for credit dispensation.
2. Selection of the right prospective borrower/group ofborrowers.
3. Proper and scientific evaluation of the proposedactivity/ proposal of the prospective borrower.
4. Proper evaluation of the risk factors involved andmitigation of the same.
5. Availability of adequate tangible and purposeful securityas well as ensuring the availability of proper margin.
6. A proper evaluation of the proposal at all levels anddisbursement of the same by the dedicated, sincere, honest, and well trainedand qualified staff.
7. Need-based disbursement of the loan after properexecution of the required legal documents and after meeting all the terms andconditions prescribed in the sanction letter.
8. A regular post disbursement follow-up to ensure that thefunds disbursed are actually utilized for the purpose for which the same havebeen disbursed.
9. Regular spot inspections of the unit in order to ensurethat the same is running properly and the inventory level is not depleting.
10. Timely renewal of the facilities allowed/DP note andperiodical valuation of the property mortgaged to ensure that its distress salevalue is sufficient to cover the amount outstanding at any given time.
11. A regular follow up of the loan portfolio.
Recently we celebrated our 80th foundation day on 1st of October with a pledge that the real stakeholders of our bank, our esteemed customers will keep on enjoying the same standard of products and customer service which they were enjoying for the last 80 years. So I request to those hate mongers on behalf of my fellow colleagues not to interfere as ‘J&K Bank is a wonderful institution, let it remain wonderful’.
Arjun Singh Rathore
Arjun Singh Rathore is the manager of Patel Nagar branch ofJ&K Bank; views expressed are personal
arjun7474@icloud.com