January 08, 2001

High networth buildings
ICICI Bank in a typical aggressive drive to open new accounts in a hurry at its Dadar Branch has come up with a unique strategy for identifying potential account holders. In a typically white-collar middle class locality of Shivaji Park it sent out its marketing agency Esscom on a door-to-door drive to canvass new accounts and to promise that there would be no minimum balance requirement. People quickly filled up the forms coughing up as little as Rs 100 to RS 500 and no questions asked about their income or financial status. A few days later came the surprise. They receive a letter from ICICI Bank declaring - 'Building is not listed as a HNB. Hence cheque of RS 5000 required.' The immediate assumption was that the bank had pulled a con in order to open accounts first and then extort a minimum balance. But what was a HNB building status that seemed to be a problem? When asked, customer service officials initially pretended not to know what it meant, finally they admitted that it meant 'High Networth Building'. Adding insult to injury they explained that the Dadar branch had hit upon the unique strategy of listing entire buildings as being an HNB or otherwise. We wonder which management guru has suggested that appearance of buildings is a good criteria to assess individual networth. Someone ought to tell ICICI Bank that space-starved Mumbai has thriving businesses and rich individuals even in Asia's largest slum at Dharavi.

Caught ya

FOR years one has wondered about the mystery behind the BSE listing rules. Companies seemed to get suspended, delisted and re-listed all the time. Ostensibly, when BSE's listing department cracked the whip companies scurried to comply with the rules. But nobody complained because they had plenty to hide. Finally, a yellow-pages company broke the silence and it led to a full-fledged investigation. The investigators could not find evidence of corruption, as alleged by the company, but it found plenty of suspicious dealing, arrogance and inefficiency. The upshot is that the two officers in charge of the department are on the way out. The BSE has decided to send a message that it no longer tolerates bad work ethic which affects its image.

The refuse to list

FOREIGN companies, investment bankers and FIIs have always been the ones to grumble most about India's primitive trading systems. Yet, when rapid reforms in the capital market, particularly trading systems began to outstrip those in other parts of the world, it turned out that foreigners are not too comfortable with clean and transparent systems either. The latest in lethargy is the curious case of several MNCs simply refusing to get listed on the NSE. The NSE, when it started out, had little option but to permit trading in all the top companies without separate listing or payment of fees. When it became India's leading exchange and wrote to the corporate sector, it was in for a surprise. Among the companies that simply refused to be persuaded were - Nestle, Proctor and Gamble, Smithkline Beecham, Colgate, Beta and Carrier Aircon. Castrol was even more amazing - the company which had earlier resisted dematerialisation, has said that it has no intention of getting listed on the exchange. Surely the reluctance cannot stem out of a desire to save a few thousand rupees in listing fees.

Dabhol's cyber problems

PUBLIC protests about its steep electricity tariffs are apparently not the only issues that Dabhol Power Company (DPC) is battling. Apparently a cyber squatter has gone and registered the domain name www.dabholpowercompany.com and DPC is trying to initiate legal action to obtain an eviction. The DPC address mentioned above takes one to a domain registration site called namezero.com. Even dpc.com is unavailable; a company called dataproducts computer supplies has registered it. Curiously, DPC which has been issuing large advertisements to present its side in the high-tariffs-debate has no presence of its own in cyberspace. It has some space on the Enron website, but on clicking on to DPC link there is a message saying that the section is under construction.

 

 

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The author's e-mail address is: suchetadalal@yahoo.com

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