How long does it take to open a Savings A/c for an existing A/c holder at any bank ? If you are at ICICI Bund Garden Branch – Pune, be prepared to budget for over 210 minutes. The situation is as follows:

1. My wife has two accounts at the Bund Garden Branch – a salary and a savings account

2. We wanted to open a second savings account utilising the existing relationship

3. We took a ticket CA087 at 1125, till 1230 nothing came out of it. So we took another ticket CA151 at 1235. To get a form (from the Enquiry and not the Account Opening desk) took another 15 odd minutes

4. Explaining the existing account details took another 15 minutes and this after providing the existing account number

5. Getting the filled up form processed took a better part of 30 minutes including the staff’s fiddling around with the papers

6. We were advised that according to existing Reserve Bank of India circular, joint account opening applicants have to fill up a form for Blood Relatives, which curiously states that the Spouse is a blood relative. The original application form however defines a blood relative as father, mother or sibling.

The fun part is that during the entire exercise, I was informed by Investment personnel about the stellar service record of ICICI, credit card executives talked about how ICICI credit card is one of the most popular cards. Wonder when will ICICI get its customer service act together – if this is the way existing account card holders get treated at one of the bigger branches, what will new account holders face ?