Affinity Banking -Sorry, not biking!

I have come to a point in my life where I had to withdraw money from the EPF to fund my children’s further education. Somehow I choose to start a new account with Maybank so that EPF could deposit my withdrawals directly into this account. So when I went to the bank to open the account, I was asked if I have a Maybank account before. I told the officer that I had an account but had terminated it some years ago, and could not remember the reason why. So I duly filled the form, handed over the money, IC, etc. and waited for the officer to complete the process. And I waited and waited and waited. There were people who came in after me and they completed their transactions and I was still waiting. Finally, patience ran out so I asked the officer concerned what happened to my account. To my surprise, she had overlooked it and it was just sitting in her tray at her desk. Then, it came back to me, why I had terminated the earlier account with MayBank…due to unsatisfactory service. But since I had already started the process, I decided not to judge based on a single incident, and maybe the service from Maybank would have improved over the years. This happened about 1 year ago.

On the 4th Aug, I wanted to buy US currency and a bank draft for my son since he will be leaving for the US soon. This home branch told me that they do not sell US currency and asked me to go to the Jln Meru branch instead. So off I went to the Jln Meru branch and approach an officer, who was sitted behind a desk with a computer. I told her that I wanted to buy some US currency and a US $ bank draft. She told me that my daily limit was RMxxx since this was not my home branch. It was less than what I had wanted, but in order to catch the day’s exchange rates, I decided to purchase what ever my limit would allow. So I enquired about the rates and was told to go out of the bank, around the corner where the bank has a foreign exchange counter to get those rates. The officer told me that she could not see the rates in her computer. So I went out of the bank, around the corner and to the counter. I managed to get the exchange rates, and when I told the counter that I wanted to purchase a bank draft, I was told to the upstairs of the bank. So I went upstairs and asked one of the officers at the counter how to get a number for the queue. She told me to go back downstairs to get a number! So….I was downstairs, got sent out and then back into bank to go upstairs and was told to go back downstairs, even before I can start any transaction! Is this what Maybank’s service is all about?

I left that branch without getting anything done.

Yesterday, I went back to my home branch, bought a US$ bank draft for my son and transferred the rest of my money from that account to another bank. have decided once again to terminate my account with Maybank. But I must express my thanks to Satish Chander, who was most helpful when I was buying the bank draft and tried to empathize with me, I must say that he was the saving grace for Maybank. Apart from that, I am thankful that there are other banks that I can operate my accounts with.

So you heard about affinity banking? It sure looks like there is no affinity between Maybank and me!