Financial planning covers a lot more ground than most people assume, and a bank relationship manager, however well-meaning, may not have the training or the mandate to handle every piece of it. For NRIs, the complexity runs even higher, since two tax jurisdictions, cross-border rules, and long-distance logistics all layer on top of the basics.
Quick Answer
Bank relationship managers typically carry sales targets tied to their own bank’s products, and they are rarely trained or incentivised to look at your complete financial picture, tax situation, estate planning, and long-term goals together. This does not automatically make every recommendation wrong, but it does mean the advice you get is shaped by what the bank sells, not necessarily by what fits your plan best. Understanding this gap is the first step to getting genuinely comprehensive financial planning as an NRI.
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An NRI once emailed us a screenshot of a conversation with his bank’s relationship manager. He had asked a straightforward question about whether a product suited his goals. The reply steered him firmly back toward a product the bank was clearly incentivised to sell.
We get one or two emails like this every month. Our honest reply is always some version of the same thing: this is a structural issue, not necessarily bad intent on the individual banker’s part. They operate inside a system with its own targets and incentives.
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Things NRIs Should Know About Financial Planning
Here are the gaps we see most often when a bank relationship manager is doubling as an NRI’s de facto financial planner.
1. Financial Planning Is More Than Selling Investment Products
Financial planning for NRIs is a genuinely comprehensive exercise. It includes assessing your current financial health, guiding you through NRI tax issues, managing your estate and will, aligning investments to short and long-term goals, building in a buffer for financial emergencies, and staying on top of compliance obligations tied to your NRI status.
A relationship manager, understandably, tends to focus on the investment angle, since that is where their role directly connects to bank revenue and their own targets. If your banker is not addressing the fuller list above, that is a signal worth noticing, not a personal failing on their part, but a structural limitation of the role.
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2. Product Recommendations Should Fit the Client, Not the Shelf
A thorough financial planning process looks at your risk profile, whether a product suits your short or long-term goals, its tax impact, how it affects your portfolio’s diversification, your target asset allocation, and your actual cash flow needs.
A bank relationship manager may not walk through all of these systematically, partly because their toolkit is limited to what their bank offers. If these factors are not being considered together in whatever advice you are getting, your plan may not be as well-suited to your actual situation as it could be.
3. Sales Targets and Comprehensive Advice Pull in Different Directions
Bank relationship managers have sales targets, because banks, like any business, need revenue. This isn’t a scandal, it is simply how the role is structured. But it does mean the products pushed toward you are often the ones that help the RM hit a target, not necessarily the ones best suited to your plan.
What matters more than how an advisor is compensated is whether they disclose it clearly and structure their recommendations around your actual goals. Whether an advisor earns a flat fee, a commission, or some combination of both, the test that matters is: are they upfront about how they get paid, and does the product actually fit your situation? A good advisor, regardless of their compensation model, will tell you plainly when they earn something from a recommendation.
4. There Are Many More Products in the Market Than Your Bank Offers
A bank relationship manager typically earns an incentive tied to their own bank’s products, and it is operationally simpler for them to manage everything from one shelf. So their default recommendation tends to be their own bank’s offering.
For example, a banker might steer you toward their bank’s FD for a low-risk, fixed-return allocation. But depending on your situation, tax-free bonds, taxable bonds, or an FD at a different bank altogether may genuinely serve you better. The only way to know is to look beyond what any single institution is showing you.
“The question worth asking is not whether your advisor earns something from a recommendation, but whether they told you clearly, and whether the recommendation still makes sense for your specific goals.”
5. Financial Planning Is a Lifelong Activity
Financial planning matters from your first job through your first investments, your annual tax computation, your goal-setting, your retirement, and eventually the transfer of your estate to the people who matter to you. Does whoever is advising you actually think about your finances across this whole arc, or only the immediate product decision in front of you?
If it is only the latter, it may be worth seeking a financial adviser who genuinely engages with the full picture, not just the transaction of the day.
6. Good Financial Planning Should Not Be Tied to a Single Bank Relationship
A useful test: will your current advisor still work with you on financial planning if you close your account at their bank and move elsewhere? A relationship manager typically cannot, since their role and their incentive structure are bound to that specific institution. An independent financial adviser generally faces no such constraint.
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7. Suitability, Not Just Compensation Model, Is What Actually Protects You
Some NRIs assume that because a bank feels institutionally trustworthy, the specific product recommendation it gives them must also be well-suited to their goals. Those are two different things. A large, reputable bank can still recommend a product that isn’t the best fit for your particular plan, simply because that is what the relationship manager’s role incentivises.
A competent financial planner, whatever their compensation structure, should recommend products that genuinely suit your plan, disclose clearly how they are compensated on any recommendation, and be willing to explain why a product fits your specific goals rather than simply asserting that it does. Before you act on any recommendation, whether from a banker or an independent adviser, ask directly how they are compensated and why this specific product suits your plan. A good answer to both questions is a reasonable bar to expect.
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Financial planning should include recommendations suited to your specific plan and a periodic review of whether anything needs to change, not a one-time product sale followed by silence until the next renewal cycle.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Why do bank relationship managers focus mainly on investment products?
Relationship managers typically carry sales targets tied to their bank’s own products, which naturally shapes their focus toward investments over broader planning like tax, estate, and goal-based strategy. This is a structural feature of the role rather than a reflection of any individual banker’s intent.
Should I only work with a fee-only financial planner?
Not necessarily. Compensation model matters less than transparency and suitability. Advisors who earn commission can still act in your best interest, provided they disclose how they are compensated and the product genuinely fits your plan. The key question to ask any advisor, fee-only or commission-based, is how they are paid and why a specific recommendation suits your situation.
What should comprehensive financial planning include for an NRI?
It should cover an assessment of your current financial health, NRI-specific tax guidance, estate and will planning, investment alignment to short and long-term goals, a buffer for emergencies, and ongoing compliance advice. If your current advice only touches investment products, you are likely missing several of these pieces.
Please share your experience with bankers or financial advisers in the comment section. If you have any questions regarding financial planning, feel free to ask.
You are absolutely right due to this fear some time I avoid to take branch visit also. They are first start selling there product before asking what is my problems. Only we are waiting account protebility what RBI is suggesting few year back like mobile operator. But now same is in cold box.
Thanks for sharing your experience Mr Manoj.
I was NRI and returned to India in Feb end and can i have HUF account ? (I am not resident for the last 2 years)