Radhika is a 29 year old home maker from Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh who wanted to open a bank account at Utkarsh Bank to avail a microfinance loan. On arrival with her husband, she was greeted by the staff, who asked for her purpose of visit. Once she clarified her intent, she was directed to the staff member responsible for account opening.

As the process began, she was asked if she could sign her name, a standard procedure for Utkarsh since many of their customers, particularly women, are not typically literate. She confidently said she could, and the onboarder handed her a blank piece of paper to demonstrate her signature. She carefully signed her name in Hindi, slowly and with some struggle, as her lack of literacy made the task challenging. Seeing this, the staff asked her to practice signing a few more times. The onboarder, along with other customers present, helped guide her hand, showing her how to hold the pen properly and encouraging her as she tried again.

After several attempts, she mentioned that she could also sign her name in English. The staff then asked her to show her English signature, which she wrote in capital letters. However, signing in capital letters was not accepted due to regulations, and the onboarder requested that she continue practicing her Hindi signature instead.

The account opening process was significantly hindered by a series of technical challenges. The onboarder had to repeatedly restart the device whenever the app failed to load or initiate the account creation.

To complete the process, Radhika had to verify her phone number. She was required to provide an OTP. However, since she didn’t own a personal phone, she arrived with her husband's number written on a piece of paper. When she handed it over, the onboarder asked her to retrieve the phone from her husband, who was waiting outside the branch. After returning with the phone and handing it over, the onboarder asked if she was sure the number on the paper matched the phone’s number, to which she confirmed. The onboarder called the number to verify it.

Once this step was completed, the account opening request was sent to the Utkarsh CPC (Central Processing Center) for approval. With a backlog of 4-5 approvals from the branch and only one CPC handling nearly 500 applications daily for the entire state, the wait was long. Although Radhika had arrived at the branch in the morning, she was still waiting at 3 PM for her account to be approved, so she could start her loan application process.