Aside from attracting deposits, which has long been a main criterion for assessing the successful performance of a bank, increasing customer loyalty and decreasing non-performing loans are also important factors which can increase the reliability of a bank, said Hamid Tehranfar, deputy governor of the CBI for supervision affairs
He said that the banking system must build and honor rapport with customers from all different societal classes, an idea put forward by Mohammad Hossein Adeli, the CBI governor between 1989 and 1994. “Bank branches are the frontiers where mutual trust is built.”
The senior banking official clarified however that building trust should not avert banks’ focus from other missions such as “promoting electronic banking,” Banker quoted him as saying.
Stating that the information on nearly five percent of bank clients is still incomplete the official urged banks to attend to this issue. “To prevent banking fraud, the national ID numbers of all clients must be registered,” he said.
As bending legal procedures soil the credibility of the banking system, building trust and rapport with clients must not turn into an excuse for bankers to turn a blind eye on misdemeanors, especially when providing loans.
“It is of uttermost importance to check credit records with the CBI before lending,” the official stressed, adding that if all common legal procedures are not followed and a problem happens to occur, ultimately the bank manager would be the one who will chiefly be held responsible.
