GTB, short-lived new generation private sector bank did, indeed, represent a bundle of contradictions; it had a glorious start, but an unceremonious and early death. One can, however, look at one aspect of this bank, with admiration and genuine respect, and that is the near perfection achieved by GTB in offering excellent customer service. This was made possible, among other things, by a very astute and successful technology deployment across the bank, early enough in its existence.
In the 1970s, the electro-mechanical Ledger Posting Machines (LPMs) provided limited relief by producing printed statements; additionally, these LPMs also helped by applying interest on overdraft and cash credit accounts and by balancing the ledgers. These were bulky, slow and cumbersome, since physical ledger sheets and statements had to be form-fed, one by one. There are many stories of pins being deliberately slipped into the machines by operators to put them out of order, as the ground level staff did not welcome these devices. Electronic calculators made their appearance around this time. BankCal or similar low-cost, chip-based devices, with multipurpose applications, some with small printers attached, also became available and were soon put to widespread use in branches, although their use was not officially approved by the unions. This use reduced, to some extent, the drudgery in the internal housekeeping area.
Banks, in the second half of the 1980s, following an IBA agreement with the unions, started inducting, as per the recommendations of the Rangarajan Committee, either ALPMs (Advanced LPMs), or EAMs (Electronic Accounting Machines), which were, in reality, full-fledged computers, but could undertake only limited, "agreed upon" transactions, due to software restrictions, introduced on the insistence of the unions. With ALPMs, the counter clerks started maintaining the transactions directly in the computerized customer databases; customer service, and branch ambience, as a result, improved visibly and the internal housekeeping chores like ledger-balancing, periodic interest application and statement preparation, became less burdensome. But the preparation of returns and reconciliation work, at the whole branch level, still continued to pose serious challenges. All other functions like TDR, Bill Business, etc., continued to be handled manually in such branches.
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