[TorqueyTechie]

Originally Posted by sunilch

I hold accounts in both banks as those were opened as Salary accounts in each but later I never closed them.
CitiBank has been a pure "Open it, Forget it" kind of experience for me. ICICI will either share your data with other ICICI associated departments/companies, or somehow your data will reach 3rd parties.

Yes this is what I have experienced with Citibank too. Never been a hassle to deal with the bank and have absolutely 0 issues. in the 17 years that I have the account with Citibank I might have visited it hardly 5 times. So my expectations with any private bank would be similar. Glad that you shared the perspective having accounts in both. Main reason of thinking to open an account was to move my additional funds to that and not for payments to cc. But I guess will not do that now instead move it to my SBI account itself.

Originally Posted by sunilch

But, CitiBank is now sold to Axis and I am not sure what the future will hold for us

Hope there wont be such issues for us.

[sumathindra]

I have been banking with Citi since 26 years now! Not once have I faced any problems all these years, be it CC payments or online banking including their mobile apps. Perfect example of end user satisfaction.

Not with Citi going away, i seriously doubt if any bank can provide this kind of "ease of banking" experience! Time will tell...

[kavensri]

Originally Posted by sumathindra

I have been banking with Citi since 26 years now! Not once have I faced any problems all these years, be it CC payments or online banking including their mobile apps. Perfect example of end user satisfaction.

Not with Citi going away, i seriously doubt if any bank can provide this kind of "ease of banking" experience! Time will tell...

Same here! I have been banking with them since July 1998 and not once I had any issues with their Suvidha or the Credit Card account. I am surely going to miss their service.

[thanixravindran]

Originally Posted by TorqueyTechie

Yes this is what I have experienced with Citibank too. Never been a hassle to deal with the bank and have absolutely 0 issues. in the 17 years that I have the account with Citibank I might have visited it hardly 5 times. So my expectations with any private bank would be similar. Glad that you shared the perspective having accounts in both. Main reason of thinking to open an account was to move my additional funds to that and not for payments to cc. But I guess will not do that now instead move it to my SBI account itself.

I do have the same experience with Citibank (Salary and now Non Salary) which has become the Golden standard for me to deal with the banks. I have visited only twice in the last 16 years. In fact, it was the only private bank account I had till 2020.

I have to create ICICI bank Salary account during the first lock down in May 2020, and yes it was a good experience. It took just 2 mins to create it online using AADHAR and did a Video KYC too. I am yet to visit the branch in the last 2 years. You can do everything with Netbanking and Mobile app. However, the marketing push is a bit high for their products and emails are at spam level (Daily 20 to 30 emails).

Though I am having Zero balance Salary account, I upgraded my regular savings account to The ONE Savings account (again Salary zero balance) which gives benefits like Rs. 999 Amazon voucher (one time), Zomato Pro 1 year membership (one time), each month Rs. 250/500 BigBasket discount tied to The ONE Debit card. I believe these may not be useful with the higher Minimum Balance requirement for Non Salary accounts but since it is literally free for me, I opted for it.

Now most of the banks (PSU or Private) provide options to do many banking transactions online. This is fine for 99% of time. However the difference is when you need support/service for that remaining 1% time, private banks like Citi shine.

From personal experience, the attitude of PSU banks like SBI or Canara are so poor that gives an impression that they are doing you a favor which should be the other way around. So please think twice before opting for SBI.

If security of the money is the sole criteria, SBI is indeed the option.

[Latheesh]

Help! - What is the difference between ICICI insta savings account savings account?

[thanixravindran]

Originally Posted by Latheesh

Help! - What is the difference between ICICI insta savings account savings account?

I guess you are asking about Insta savings account Vs Regular Savings account.

AFAIK, Insta savings account is fully online and can be created only with AADHAR authentication (OTP based) whereas Regular savings account has to be opened in Branch with other prescribed KYC documents too.

I don't know whether there are any product differentiation.

[.sushilkumar]

One thing i realise with Pvt banks is that on-boarding is smooth, services are satisfactory but it comes at a huge price.

I hold a salary account with ICICI. I got conned by my own so called relationship manager in ICICI bank. Like a fool i trusted her exact words on a PL & i am paying with my hard earned money for last 5 years. That,s where i choose to move my salary account to SBI and I am happy customer for past 2 years. It is a rural branch in hills & i work from NCR. Net banking & phone banking works for me 90% of the time and fulfils all my needs.

Yes, It is a pain as and when i have to visit the branch but it does helps to maintain a good working relationship with Branch manager. I just took a PL disbursal from SBI at 9.5% reducing interest rate within a weeks time on very good favourable terms. All done remotely so far. ICICI is offering me same at 11% despite a excellent CIBIL score. In the end, I am saving almost 40 K INR over the loan tenure & lots of flexibility. Not bad IMO.

[TorqueyTechie]

So it is officially confirmed that Citibank is to be taken over by Axis bank. I received an email communication mentioning the same and the whole switchover is to be completed by Q1 2023.

Quote from a news article about the sale

Axis Bank will acquire Citi’s consumer businesses in India for a cash consideration of approximately $1.6 billion, Citi announced in a press release.

The transaction comprises the sale of the consumer banking businesses of Citibank India, which includes credit cards, retail banking, wealth management and consumer loans, the statement said.

“Axis was selected by Citi following an extensive and competitive auction process,” the global banking behemoth said.

Source : Indian Express

[adisan]

Citibank takeover by Axis Bank:10 points (ZeeNews report)

Highlights:

With Axis Bank taking over retail banking operations of Citibank in India, 30 lakh account and credit card holders of the US banking giant will have to indicate if they are willing to migrate their business to the new owner, Axis Bank said.

Axis Bank managing director Amitabh Chaudhry said Citibank's customers will continue to avail all the rewards, privileges and offers to which they were previously entitled.

The transaction is expected to take 9-12 months to complete. The transaction is expected to close in the first half of calendar year 2023, subject to requisite regulatory approvals, according to a statement by Citibank.

[meerkat]

Citibank takeover by Axis Bank:10 points (ZeeNews report)

Axis Bank is also keen to absorb nearly all the 3,600 employees working for the consumer banking business of Citi and will be eventually making offers to them at par with their current emoluments, and also raise the payouts to its existing employees for parity, Chaudhry said.

So if Axis will really raise the payouts to its existing employees for parity, could its existing customers also expect an enhanced level of service quality "for parity"?

-- Nah, -- I'd rather expect a drastic fall in service quality for the current Citi customers down to the Axis Bank level, "for parity"! -- Contrary to their promise:

Axis Bank and Citibank together will ensure continuity of superior customer service levels, even post-closing of transaction, across all customer channels.

.

[locusjag]

I have absolutely adored my Citi account's ease of use since 2006.

I now detest HDFC for the horrible experience I'm having with their automobile loan foreclosure process; I have a salary account, a card and an auto loan with them - the latter is something I want to foreclose. Everything is just so messy with HDFC when compared to Citi's superior processes. Everything works so intuitively and correctly with Citi.

Damn...is there a comparable bank to Citi?

[ValarMorghulis]

I also have had a pretty good experience with Citibank since 2013.
My experience with Axis bank has been pretty ordinary and that was one of the reasons I gave up the account in 2013.

Hope Axis Bank Credit Cards are good as well or else I'll have to fall back on HDFC.

[Su-47]

Like many others on this thread, I've also been a long time satisfied customer of Citi. So much so, that I take them for granted that everything will just work as expected. Reminds me of Finolex ad featuring Sehwag:

https://youtu.be/hViuI64jsjg

Some time last year, I heard that DCB was also in contention for Citi's retail business, but they dropped off for some reason. Based on inputs from friends, DCB would have been close to Citi in terms of service (atleast for bank account, no idea about their credit-cards). I don't have high hopes from Axis, but, let's see how it goes...

Thanks,
Su-47

[binand]

I opened my Citigold account back in 2003. In these nearly 20 years I have had to visit a branch of theirs twice - both pre-NEFT days when I needed DDs urgently (faster than their order-online-get-delivered workflow) - such was the quality of their service. Now I find myself suddenly cut adrift. As I see it, I have four options:

1. Continue with Citi and transition to Axis. I don't have a great opinion of Axis's services so this course I'd like to avoid.

2. Close Citi out completely and consolidate everything in my other bank, HDFC. What I know is that I am perennially at an adversarial position with HDFC what with complaints and service tickets pending all the time. I really don't want to increase my dependency on them any more (I am trying to cut down here as a matter of fact).

3. Follow my Citi RM to Kotak Mahindra Bank. I don't have a view on KMB's quality of service.

4. Close Citi out and find a new bank. Which one?

At the moment I have more or less ruled out #2. I am actively considering #3 because that RM has been good so far (4-5 years). Too many options for #4 that I can't decide.

[comfortablynumb]

Originally Posted by binand

At the moment I have more or less ruled out #2. I am actively considering #3 because that RM has been good so far (4-5 years). Too many options for #4 that I can't decide.

Kotak is quite decent. I had a salary a/c with them for half a decade, and no complaints. Even a/c closure was quite smooth. They are not in Citi's class, but definitely not as bad as HDFC either (my wife finds a new reason to curse HDFC literally every month).

Another option about which I had heard good things a few years ago from people in my friend circle is DigiBank. MAB is 10k INR. No personal experience though.