In May of this year, I joined a new company that requires you to make an employee salaried account over at Askari bank, specifically at a specific branch near their office - a current account with a ‘Classic PayPak debit card’.
This practice was made illegal in USA for all employers way back in 1978 under the Electronic Fund Transfer Act (EFT), but this evil practice is still legal in Pakistan. On 10th May, I endured this miserable bank’s salaried account opening process where my BAHL debit card got stuck inside their wonderful ATM machine. The office received my acknowledgement letter some 10 days later despite the bank assuring me of a 2-day max waiting period. Later, I was confidently assured of receiving my debit card and cheque book in my office by Monday or Tuesday which never happened. I had to collect it from their branch many days later. The card is soft, bendy and appears to be made of low-quality materials and the embossed writing is already losing its coating. My BAHL card is far superior, just like the bank itself. The fact that all employees of my company who open their salaried account at this bank immediately transfer their salary to their personal bank account speaks volumes about the immense ineptitude of this wretched bank. Strangely enough, while opening my account they did not require me to enter my biometric information on their biometric fingerprint reader. So much for security.
Net banking registration process: With the card acquired, it’s now time to register my account for online banking and transactions via their mobile app so I never have to endure this bank’s experience again. It started with registering my account on their mobile app, which wouldn’t let me get past the newly introduced biometric verification stage, a policy by the glorious State Bank of Pakistan. Unable to properly register, it was now time to register on their desktop website.
The registration process puts you through a series of OTPs and provides an 8-digit activation code. The rest of the process must be coordinated with one of their phone operators via their helpline, which is also split into two sessions. The first half is the simplest, where the operator guides you through the registration process by verifying personal details that they should have long ago and by now, but then, it wouldn’t be called verification, would it? The operator lets you to set up your ATM card pin number which finally enables you to make card transactions. They then inform you of a waiting period of 24-48 hours where you will be contacted for the 2nd half of the registration process - registering your net banking account. None of this was required for my BAHL account.
Not even an hour later, another operator calls me to finish the 2nd half of the registration process. This process has to be done according to the operator’s instructions because unsurprisingly, their website is TOO shitty to follow along yourself. I’m actually quite surprised to see that a modern, private bank in a highly competitive market would so stubbornly refuse to upgrade their website, apps, and pretty much everything it stands for.
The operator took 13 minutes of my time to carefully and respectfully - I might add - guide me through the registration process. The website looks like it was built by an unpaid and overworked accountant. Even an excel sheet would have passed better. The process involves entering the 8-digit activation code I mentioned earlier which serves as the temporary password - a placeholder. You then enter your login details and finally a ‘device registration name’ and your account is set up. Your password couldn’t be longer than 8 letters and had to consist of alphanumeric characters. For an incredibly strange reason, my ‘device name’ was also my full name truncated to 16 letters. You’re done and the excel sheet is yours.
Mobile app verification process:
They will ask for the branch name of your account. The company location and name, CNIC, the request ID that will be sent to your phone via SMS when you try to register your phone device for it on the app. There will be two options: biometric verification by the app itself, and biometric verification by visiting any nearest branch. No way in hell was I going to place my trust in their online service, so I took the other option. In retrospect, the online process would have sufficed.
After this, the operator will ask for your IMEI number. The IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) is a unique 15-digit serial number used to identify a device. Every mobile phone in the world has one. I wasn’t familiar with this—and, surprisingly, neither was the operator. It was not a requirement for the BAHL mobile app. To access it, enter ‘IMEI’ in your phone search box and chose the slot which you believe to be the slot for the sim number registered for the app, in my case - slot 2. Strangely enough, no ‘biometric’ information was needed through a fingerprint scan. In hindsight, the bank visit was not even required. They could have allowed you to register with these details yourself. I’m not sure why I had to visit a branch to spoon-feed them information that could have easily been handled online by myself. Beyond a doubt, the most pathetic bank I have ever had the displeasure of working with.
As for the post registration experience, let’s just say that their app works as intended and surprisingly well I’d say despite looking like a shopping mall’s black and white sales receipt. It’s lackluster UI and oversized font and icons don't help, but it works.
Salary transfer process - as expected:
I was only required to open an account to receive my salary and that is all I did with it. Unsurprisingly, my company’s employees never received an email alert about having received their salary, which was some 5 days into the new month. We had to manually verify each month by logging into our Askari account and transferring our salaries to our personal bank accounts.
Having resigned a few months later, the first thing I did was terminate my Askari account which required visiting a local branch. By God, their branches have the feel of an underfunded government office, even though it's a fully private organisation. The employee handled my request without any issues, except that to permanently terminate my account, I have to visit that same branch where I opened it. She received my cheque book, debit card, CNIC copy but needed a payment of some 230RS to actually terminate it which also had to be paid at their branch. We discussed a bit about the bank’s lack of transparency and that it would be ideal if I followed up on the status by either phoning their helpline or visiting the local branch. I never followed through with it and my account is still active, apparently.
So there you have it. My full Askari Bank experience.
My advice to anyone looking to open a new bank account: Find a different bank. I recommend Bank Al Habib over Mezan, which had a critical data leak a few days ago.
