Banks set up 24x7 self- service branches
SOMASROY CHAKRABORTY
Kolkata, 5 November
Now, you could visit a bank branch in the middle of the night to
deposit money and get the funds credited to your account instantly.
Banks have started opening unmanned electronic branches offering most
of the banking services, beyond regular banking hours.
ICICI Bank, the country's largest private sector lender, has already
set up 61 such branches across 33 cities. Due to its popularity, the
bank plans to increase its electronic branch count to 100 by the end
of March 2014.
Around 60,000 new customers transact at the bank's existing electronic
branches every month and about a fifth of them use the services after
regular banking hours and on Sundays and public holidays. In
September, around 1.08 million transactions were carried out at ICICI
Bank's electronic branches.
Customers can do realtime cash deposits, withdraw money, deposit
cheques and get instant receipts, transfer funds, open fixed deposits
and generate bank statements at these branches.
These also offer accountrelated information through internet banking
and video conference.
"On an average, an individual spends about nine to 10 hours a day at
work. This leaves him with limited time to attend to his routine
needs, which includes daytoday banking. We felt that there was a need
to offer an opportunity to our customers to transact at their
convenience. The concept of electronic branches was based on the
feedback we received from our customers," Rajiv Sabharwal, executive
director of ICICI
Bank, told Business Standard.
Besides metro centres, ICICI Bank has also opened these branches in
cities such as Rajkot, Baroda, Vizag, Lucknow, Raipur and Guwahati.
The cost of operation of unmanned electronic branches is relatively
less than that of a regular branch.
Most of the electronic branches are currently colocated with regular
branches of ICICI Bank. " Initially, we need to explain the services
to our customers. Hence, we decided to co- locate electronic branches
with regular branches in most places. The expansion, both in terms of
services and geographical presence, will be based on feedback from the
customers.
Typically, these are more popular among young professionals and
salaried individuals. These customers prefer self- service banking and
electronic branches suit them," Sabharwal said.
State Bank of India has opened electronic branches, offering round-
the- clock banking services to its customers.
Its electronic branches, which are referred to as ' ecorners', house
ATMs, cash- deposit machines, selfservice kiosks and even coinvending
machines. Customers can pay bills, reprint passbooks, transfer funds
and conduct other banking transactions at these facilities. HI- TECH
SERVICE
|Electronic branches offer facilities to deposit cash, withdraw money,
deposit cheques and get instant receipts, transfer funds, open fixed
deposits and generate bank statements |In September, around 1.08
million transactions were carried out at ICICI Bank's electronic
branches |SBIs electronic branches referred to as ' e- corners' also
house ATMs, cashdeposit machines, selfservice kiosks and coinvending
machines
Litigating for a lark
It is well known that the government is the largest litigant in
courts. It has some 10 million civil cases pending. The attorney
general had remarked two years ago that the government is a "
compulsive litigant". Courts brim over with frivolous lawsuits. This
is because the expense is on the government.
Officials get paid trips to various courts in the country and lawyers
compete for fat, dumb briefs. Curiously, this is a worldwide
phenomenon.
It was this tendency that the Supreme Court condemned last week in a
case of compassionate appointment. The judges remarked: " For decades,
courts across the country witness appeals on frivolous grounds,
resulting in wastage of public money and consuming valuable time of
the courts.
This happens because officers involved in these frivolous appeals are
not personally responsible and don't pay from their pockets." The
court was hearing an appeal moved by the Chennai Port Trust against an
order of the Madras High Court, directing it to offer appointment to a
poor widow on compassionate grounds. The bench directed the port trust
to appoint her within one month and pay her ₹ 1 lakh as compensation
for the delay in giving the job.
The observations of the judges are even truer in revenue matters. A
few weeks earlier, the court dismissed abatch of appeals of the income
tax authorities with strong remarks for pursuing futile litigation.
The question was rather simple: Whether the benefit of an entitlement
to make duty- free imports of raw materials is income in the year in
which the exports are made or in the year in which the dutyfree
imports are made? The court answered the question in the next
paragraph itself: the income does not accrue in the year of export but
in the year in which the imports are made. But it took 10 years for
the appeals to reach the Supreme
Court ( Commissioner of Income Tax vs Excel Industries).
The view of the companies had already been accepted by the authorities
in 1992, but the issue was exhumed to invent litigation. The
authorities were not successful in their gamble in the Bombay High
Court; so, they moved the Supreme Court. The court made some stinging
remarks against them. The firms had already paid the tax due and,
therefore, the government was not deprived of any tax. Moreover, the
tax rate had not changed over the years in this case.
The court remarked that the dispute raised was " academic or at best
may have a minor tax effect. There was, therefore, no need for the
revenue [ department] to continue with this litigation… it ought to
let the matter rest rather than spend the taxpayers' money in pursuing
litigation for its own sake".
Some appeals lead to a suspicion of an official- lawyer nexus to mulch
the government in legal expenses. Despite the court condemning the
litigation between the government and its departments and public
sector undertakings suing each other, this practice has not been
stopped. At one time, the court asked the government to set up an
internal mechanism to avoid such fratricidal litigation. However,
later, the court found that it was a remedy worse than the disease in
practice and, therefore, scrapped the idea. For example, in many
cases, the industry department took one view about a dispute while the
revenue department took an opposite stand. With the acknowledged
failure of the mechanism, the Left and Right arms of the government
and its agencies have returned to the courts to cram the creaking
system.
The proliferation of trumpedup suits have tickled the funny bones of
judges in some cases. Sometime ago, HAL and Mysore Sales International
reached the apex court on a dispute over ₹ 9,000. The judges analysed
the psychology of executives and gave
the following insight a la Parkinson's: All claims against the
government/ statutory authorities should be viewed as illegal and be
resisted and fought up to the highest court of the land. If taking a
decision on an issue could be avoided, it is prudent not to decide the
issue and let the aggrieved party approach the court and secure a
decision.
The law commission has identified various reasons the government
became an irresponsible litigant. The attorney general, who should
know, discussed them and has said that in most cases, the government
litigated because of the utter indifference on the part of civil
servants. Sometimes, the government pursued litigation as amatter of
prestige, with an attitude of vengeance. In several cases, the
officials had an attitude of arrogance and a superiority complex.
It is easy to file a case in court and leave it for the courts to
decide. One obvious reason to do so is to avoid the necessity of
taking decisions. Though a special team with paraphernalia was set up
to weed out wasteful litigation, little has been achieved as indicated
by the recent outburst of the judges.
Frivolous suits by the government have cramped the judicial system
OUT OF COURT
MJ ANTONY
Don't rush to demat insurance policies
Buying an e- policy? Mix and match first. Sample this: You have an e-
account with Central Insurance Repository, while your insurer has a
repository tie- up with Karvy Insurance. In this case, converting any
existing policy to e- format or buying an e- policy from the insurer
makes little sense.
A few months ago, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (
Irda) had asked insurance firms to launch e- policies. Most insurers
have launched e- policies, and these are cheaper 80 per cent, in terms
of processing costs for insurers. However, they are yet to tie up with
all five repositories — NSDL Database Management, Central Insurance
Repository, SHCIL Projects, Karvy Insurance Repository and CAMS
Repository Services. Irda hasn't made it mandatory for insurers to tie
up with all repositories.
"The infrastructure for the dematerialisation of policies is in a
nascent stage. Soon, every insurance company would tie up with all the
five repositories, as proposed by Irda, not restrict the tie up to
only a few," says Frederick Dsouza, senior vice- president (
underwriting), HDFC Life.
Assuming one holds policies of LIC, Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance, HDFC
Life, Reliance Life Insurance and Max Bupa. Given HDFC Life has tied
up with NSDL Database Management, Central Insurance Repository and
SHCIL Projects, you could hold an e- account with any of these three
repositories. What if all the others decide to tie up with the
remaining two repositories? Then, you would have to hold some policies
in physical form and others in demat form. Therefore, it is suggested
till there is more clarity on insurer- repository tie- ups, do not
hurry to demat your policies. P Ravi Kutumbarao, head ( technical),
Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance, says, " According to existing
guidelines, an individual can hold e- policies pertaining to only
those insurance companies that have tied up with the repository where
he/ she holds an account." Another insurer says the industry is
negotiating on the cost of digitising policies and annual servicing
fees. Currently, the cost of issuing a policy and, subsequently,
maintaining it stands at about ₹ 500 a policy for insurers.
Digitisation would reduce this cost to ₹ 100, insurers say.
Currently, policyholders can open e- insurance accounts free of
charge. Also, insurers do not charge a fee for converting existing
policies to demat form. For this, however, repositories charge around
₹ 100. These also charge ₹ 100 for account maintenance and up to ₹ 50
for servicing requests.
E- insurance was primarily introduced to allow the insured to maintain
all their policies — life, pension, health or other general insurance
plans — in a single demat account. This would have made things easier,
in terms of maintaining records.
NEHA PANDEY DEORAS
If your e- account doesn't match the insurer's repository, the policy
would have to be held in physical form
>YOUR MONEY
--
CS A Rengarajan
9381011200
CS Benevolent Fund is a collective effort towards extending the much
needed financial support to the community of Company Secretaries in
times of distress Let us lend support and join for noble cause.
SHARING KNOWLEDGE SKY IS THE LIMIT
This mail and its attachments (if any) are confidential information
intended for persons to whom the email is planned for delivery by the
sender. If you have received this mail in error please notify the
sender of the error by forwarding the email and its attachments (if
any) and then deleting the mail received in error and the relevant
email trail in this connection without making any copies or taking any
prints.
------------------------------------
receive alert on mobile, subscribe to SMS Channel named "aaykarbhavan"
[COST FREE]
SEND "on aaykarbhavan" TO 9870807070 FROM YOUR MOBILE.
To receive the mails from this group send message to aaykarbhavan-subscribe@yahoogroups.comYahoo Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aaykarbhavan/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aaykarbhavan/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
aaykarbhavan-digest@yahoogroups.com
aaykarbhavan-fullfeatured@yahoogroups.com
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
aaykarbhavan-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo Groups is subject to:
http://info.yahoo.com/legal/us/yahoo/utos/terms/
No comments:
Post a Comment