Many ways of 'closing eyes' to please VIP customers of bank employees

Because of the huge profits, there are many cases where VIP customers are pampered by bank employees to the point of "breaking the rules" of security, causing the bank to pay a price in both money and reputation.

In the recent case of a customer reporting a loss of VND4 billion at Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB), SCB staff said that out of respect for the VIP customer, they "shortcut" some procedures while performing the payment authorization transaction, leading to the loss of money. This incident, as well as many other recent cases, shows that the practice of accommodating VIP customers and ignoring some banking procedures and regulations of the State Bank is very common, at both joint-stock and state-owned banks.

Customer owes billions but still presents valid documents

The pressure of competition to mobilize capital has forced many banks to design more incentives and utilities to serve VIP customers with large deposit transactions. Most VIP customers who regularly open savings books only need to call the staff to come and collect money. At the same time, customers will immediately receive the savings book (with full signature and valid stamp) even if the customer has not signed the book on the bank's documents. This means that bank employees will have to bring a savings book - considered valid by the bank, entered into the data system, regardless of the fact that the bank has not received any money.

Many VIP customers, even though they do not arrange to come to the transaction counter, still demand that transactions be carried out. Illustrative photo.

This creates many risks. For example, the simplest is for the implementation team. During the process of going to the house to deliver the book and not bringing the money back, if the internal accountant discovers it, it will definitely be handled. But more complicated, this type of compromise has the potential to lose money for the bank if the customer goes back on their word and sues after holding the book without delivering the money. Or another possibility is that the bank staff colludes with the customer to appropriate the customer's property.

Ngoc, a customer relations specialist at a bank in Hanoi, said: "Recently, our bank has been very hesitant to take this kind of risk. But sometimes there are unavoidable cases, when the customer is too VIP, we have to make exceptions and let the branch or regional director approve the policy to feel secure."

Give debtors signatures and documents

This is the type of bank that has issued money (withdrawal or transfer of money but does not have the customer's signature).

After 4 years working as a teller at a leading joint stock bank, Ly (28 years old) has a large personal clientele including many VIPs and a lot of experience. However, she recently had a heart attack because of her respect for VIP customers.

Ly said that this customer had been in a relationship with the bank for 8 years, and she had been taking care of her for nearly 3 years, so they trusted each other quite a bit. That day, the customer needed to transfer a large amount of money (more than one billion VND). Normally, the customer could transfer via Internet Banking, but this amount exceeded the limit according to ebank transfer regulations (even though it was a VIP limit). However, the customer said she was very busy and could not go to the counter to transfer it directly, but needed to transfer it urgently to the partner on time. "Because the customer was so close to me and the bank, the controller and I agreed to transfer the money, but in fact, at that time, there was no customer's signature on the payment order," Ly said.

Many bank employees know they are doing the wrong thing but still close their eyes to please VIP customers. Photo: Anh Quan.

And then, suddenly, for nearly two days, Ly could not contact the customer to get the signature and complete the documents properly. "Oh, after the first 24 hours of being quite calm even though I could not call the customer, on the second day I started to get really worried even though we recorded all calls to customers in these cases and had asked for the leader's opinion. Then suddenly the customer's family called back, said they had an accident and asked me to go to the hospital to get the signature. Only then did I breathe a sigh of relief," Ly recounted.

The head of a bank's transaction office admitted: "With this type of debt, the risk is entirely on the bank's side. If the customer goes back on their word, it will be very difficult because we have done the wrong thing and the phone call, even if recorded, has no legal value. However, it must be admitted that there are many customers who are not only VIP but also very 'snobbish', and banks cannot help but please them."

Or another risk comes from the bank staff themselves if the customer actually has no intention of transferring money like that but the staff lies about the above phone call and asks for the leader's direction to transfer money on their own. "In general, everyone knows that it is wrong, but in some rare cases, they still have to close their eyes and do it," said the head of this transaction office.

A series of other 'off-the-shelf' offers

The branch customer service director of a retail bank also confided that VIP customers have unreasonable demands because it must be admitted that they bring in high revenue for the bank. Bank deposit interest rates must always be added to the highest level (even though it is not allowed), the maximum possible, loan interest must also be the lowest, and there must be no penalty for early repayment. "We absolutely cannot charge them any money transfer fees. And if a person is a VIP, their whole family must also be identified as VIPs on the system. On the contrary, if they do not please us, today they threaten to withdraw money, tomorrow they threaten to leave the bank for another one, then we will immediately fall into danger," he said.

However, this bank official also noted that although they cater to VIP customers, customer relations staff also need to have principles to have a "back door" for themselves. One of them is to only be lenient with their own close customers and any exceptions need to be approved by their superiors via email to be able to serve as evidence. In addition, in such sensitive cases, when communicating with customers, they should use a phone with the bank's automatic recording function or via text message.

According to VNE