EastWest Bank's Maintenance Fee

For the past two months, EastWest Bank has been charging me a "maintenance fee" for supposedly falling below their minimum balance for corporate savings which is PHP20,000. The strange thing is -- I never go below their minimum. They cannot give any explanation either other than the sheepish "its system-generated" excuse. The branch manager is not of much help either as he cannot come up with any logical explanation as to why this keeps happening.

They are nice enough to always reverse the charges, but up to how long will this go on? I'm expecting another argument again at the end of this month.

Bad Experience Opening an Account with EastWest Bank

I went to the Katipunan Branch of EastWest Bank this Monday to open a corporate bank account for Dragonpay Online Payments. I got there at around 2pm and there was only one lady at the customer service counter and one teller. The Katipunan branch is actually in White Plains already, and not in the Ateneo area of Katipunan.

The customer service lady told me that EastWest has this zoning policy which basically says that a branch can only accommodate account openings for individuals or companies whose registered address is in the geographical vicinity of the branch. Since Dragonpay is officially registered as a Makati company, she said that she cannot open an account for me at Katipunan. She added that she will have to consult with her branch manager (who was not there) if she can open an account for me since my residence is closer to this branch.

To save myself the trouble of dragging Cols again to the branch to sign documents, the lady agreed to let me take home the signature cards and other application forms. Then once she gets confirmation from the branch manager that its ok to proceed, all I have to do is drop-off the signed documents.

The next day (Tuesday), I called the branch for an update on the approval. The lady said she did not have it yet but promised to call me within the day. The day passed; no call. The next day (Wednesday), I called the branch again and looked for the same lady. Again, she promised to get back to me within the day for an update. The day passed again with no call from her. Very poor customer service!

Thursday came and it was Quezon City Day, so the branch was closed; not that I was actually expecting them to call. I decided to just bring the signed application forms and signature cards to the PBCom branch of EastWest along Ayala Avenue. Since the docs were already signed, Cols did not have to go with me anymore.

The two guys manning the customer service also seemed totally clueless when it came to opening corporate accounts. They were obviously greenhorns and had to ask for help from other officers with almost everything that I inquired about. They were actually more pre-occupied entertaining the guy deployed by their IT department to fix the PC's there, than to entertain clients. One can really see the difference between big banks like BDO, BPI, Metrobank and these smaller/mid-size banks when it comes to training their personnel and providing decent customer service.

After about 30 mins, I finally got an account opened. I can't believe it actually took me four (4) days just to open an account with EastWest. Contrast that with my experience with BDO, Unionbank and Metrobank where account opening takes less than half-an-hour from the time you enter their doors.