(CFD.net.au – Contract for Difference, Share, Forex, ETFs, Commodities Traders) – The National Australia Bank says it is cutting fees and other costs on a range of accounts from January in a move that will cost it $110 million a year.

It is slashing the monthly account fees of around $5 on almost 900,000 Classic and e-Banking personal accounts, as well as a number of fees on some other account types.

It is also dropping credit card over-limit fees, and reducing late credit card payment fees from $25 to $5 from December.

NAB’s Personal Banking Group Executive Lisa Gray says the bank will not be cutting costs or raising charges elsewhere to make up the revenue.

“We have no intention at all of recouping the $110 million investment – we see it as an investment in improving our relationships with our customers, improving our services to them and making us more competitive,” she told ABC News.

She says the bank expects to lure customers from other banks.

“This is absolutely about making us more competitive, we’ve made a much clearer statement about this compared to our competitors and we do see that we’ll deepen our relationships with customers and bring in new customers,” she said.

Source: NAB slashes $110m in account fees

Assalaamu Alaykum brothers and sisters,

Have any of you ever been stung by what seem’s like rather a large bank charge when an unexpected payment takes you into the red?

I know I have, I was charged £25, which is quite infuriating given I’ve done everything I can to avoid Riba and this is exactly what such charges are – Riba.

You see Riba is where you charge more or expect something extra for borrowing money to someone.

So if you accidently go a few quid into the red, then obviously you will want to pay that off as soon as possible but on top of that the bank will charge you between £25 and £50 on top.

This isn’t just like Riba IT IS RIBA! and as such Muslims should openly condemn it as an evil as Allah says in the Quran,

O you who believe! Be afraid of Allah and give up what remains (due to you) from Riba (usury) (from now onward), if you are (really) believers. And if you do not do it, then take a notice of war from Allah and His Messenger but if you repent, you shall have your capital sums. Deal not unjustly (by asking more than your capital sums), and you shall not be dealt with unjustly (by receiving less than your capital sums).
Translation of the Quran, 2:278-280

As well as this it is a Zulm, an oppression because such charges for accidentally going a little bit into the red are all too possible in today’s society where everything is on direct debit and is invisible and such charges are therefore only going to fall on the poorest people in society.

May Allah (swt) grant us aid and victory in bringing Shariah to Leicester and the rest of the world so such oppression is not allowed again and these merchant bankers are dealt with severely if they will not repent and give up Usury.

Assalaamu Alaykum,

Daw’ud, Editor

CTO act

While i was composing my last post on curious case of sales call, I had also forwarded the mail conversation of problem with NRE account to the CTO of bank Mr Pravir Vohra, whom i had met recently during FST evevt in Sydney.

Thanks to him that service managers are taking action on same and did called me up to discuss the case and are acting on it.

I am wondering…

1. What if I would not have fwded the mail to him? am sure it would have taken longer and I would have been struggling with mails

2. What if CTO would have just ignored it thinking its not his department but that of customer care.

But no IT can no longer say that… as Mr Dhiren Kulkarni  Joint CIO  St. George bank stressed during his presentation that I own my customer, as a CIO they are my customers. I feel Its a big statement, customer is not only the responsibility of customer care rep or front staff or business but also of the IT. No wonder that CIO of CBA took sal cut when their Net banking was down and thus customer satisfaction levels went down.

All said lets see how long will it take before issue gets resolved. Anyways, thanks to Mr Pravir for taking action.

Photo: DavidDMuir

Sir David Walker was commissioned by the Government to investigate the governance of banks in the city.

His findings report that bankers who earn more than £1m should be publicly disclosed.

Other proposals include handing more power to non-executive directors to monitor banks’ risk taking and pay deals, as well as giving the Financial Services Authority the power to reign in any investment deals that if finds too excessive.

The Government has said it will now move to implement the changes proposed by Sir David.

Spanish

If after reading the title you think that, after the trauma of the crisis, banks want now to abandon their chrematistic guidelines and become saints by feeding the hungry and drink to the thirsty … is that you are simple souls!

Not exactly banks have fallen horse and, like St. Paul, suffered a sudden conversion to altruism, what happens is that the European Committee for Banking Sector (EBIC) has decided to step ahead in the real economic integration of Europe. To achieve this purpose, some measures have been established to ensure that direct debit between the countries of the union is so easy and safe as within the same country.

In practice this means that citizens of the EU -plus Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Monaco- will be able to pay by direct debit from any aforementioned territory. Up to now it was only possible to debit payments if the creditor and the account charged were in the same country, but with the new system, all banks in the Euro zone countries will have to introduce cross-border direct debit before November 2010 (the rest can wait until November 2014).

It seems that, in short, we will be able to use a single account for all kind of banking operations within the EU. Moreover, the expression “a girlfriend in every harbour” will only be applicable for sailors (with pirates’ permission), because individuals and companies must no longer open and maintain a bank account in every state where they have some economic interest, such as a branch, a subsidiary or a real state property, for example.

We will see if this works as it should and, above all, if banks charge reasonable fees for providing us with these services. Of course I assume they are not going to do it for free, because charity begins with oneself.

Mouths appear to have dropped open everywhere at the decision of the law lords on bank charges. Certainly it is difficult to understand on what basis the decision was made.First let us be clear what they – appear, anyway – to have said. This is only that the Office of Fair Trading does not have legal power to investigate value for money.

What they have NOT said is whether the charges were, or were not, value for money. Nor whether the charges were fair or unfair.

Indeed, their decision is correctly being described as a technicality. In other words, no matter what the case itself is about, the manner of conducting either the case, or the matters contributing to the case, were incorrect on procedural grounds. At least their opinion is that it is incorrect in that way.

I am not a law lord; evident as it may already be to you, I want it to be clear!

But I have great difficulty in seeing how the Office of Fair Trading is not empowered to investigate value for money. This has been at the heart of trading rules and laws for as long as recorded history.

From the standards for weights and money itself, to the arcane details of contract, value for money has been at the heart of legislative process. How can fairness be expressed without reference to value for money?

I am not even sure this is in keeping with the new Lending Code!

My advice is to move your accounts away from the big banks. Many of the building societies have much more reasonable approaches. And the Co-op Bank may be another good repository for your current account. Certainly you are going to have to spend time and though reading the terms and conditions.

Perhaps we should look to a funny little comment by a correspondent on TV tonight. This was to the effect that the cost to the banks would be billions of pounds, and that was concerning the highest ranks of government.

Perhaps once again we are seeing the unreasoned triumph of the banks over the people. Welcome to the new feudalism.

A very saddened  Joseph Harris – Debt Control Man

Author: Control Your Debt Crisis on Your Own Terms

http:www.controlyourdebtcrisis.co.uk

The RBC has release its ‘Housing Trends and Affordability Report’ for November 2009.

Unsurprisingly, Vancouver leads the pack nationally, with an average Detached bungalow requiring 66.8% of the average household income to service a 25-year mortgage loan
at a five-year fixed rate after a 25% down payment. Here are some excerpts from the report -

“Vancouver — Heating up rapidly
The Vancouver housing market continues to roar back in a spectacular way and property prices are now heating up closer and closer to a boil.  Resale activity has surged since spring and the rebound has more than fully reversed the dramatic drop that occurred in 2008. The concomitant rise in the number of units available for sale has been more subdued, which has considerably tightened the market.  In fact, the ratio of sales to new listings has returned to levels last seen in 2005 and early 2006 when prices were rising at a double-digit annual pace. This near-frenzied tone to the market is occurring despite still historically poor, and now deteriorating, levels of affordability.  In the third quarter, RBC’s affordability measures for Vancouver worsened for the first time since early 2008, rising between 1.7 and 4.3 percentage points.  These increases were, in fact, the biggest among major cities in Canada.  Even though the affordability measures fell substantially during 2008 and early 2009, they remain well above long-term averages.”

The bankers really did up the ‘cold hard cash‘ ante this time.

Poor Shock Ling (read more at Theft victim has to pay – The Straits Times 26 Nov 2009), instead of getting sympathy after getting her credit cards stolen and subsequently used on a spending binge, winds up having to pay up $17,100 of her credit card bill just because she was late in reporting her missing cards.

Neh neh… the bugger should have spent more! Someone’s paying for it anyway.

Well, as Robert Frost said ‘A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it begins to rain‘.

Bloomberg Markets – Taxpayers may have spent $13 billion more than necessary when government officials, acting in private, struck deals with big banks on AIG’s credit-default swaps.

In the months leading up to the September 2008 collapse of giant insurer American International Group Inc., Elias Habayeb and his colleagues worked nights and weekends negotiating with banks that had bought $62 billion of credit-default swaps from AIG, according to a person who has worked with Habayeb.

Habayeb, 37, was chief financial officer for the AIG division that oversaw AIG Financial Products, the unit that had sold the swaps to the banks. One of his goals was to persuade the banks to accept discounts of as much as 40 cents on the dollar, according to people familiar with the matter.

Among AIG’s bank counterparties were New York-based Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Merrill Lynch & Co., Paris-based Societe Generale SA and Frankfurt-based Deutsche Bank AG.

By Sept. 16, 2008, AIG, once the world’s largest insurer, was running out of cash, and the U.S. government stepped in with a rescue plan. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the regional Fed office with special responsibility for Wall Street, opened an $85 billion credit line for New York-based AIG. That bought it 77.9 percent of AIG and effective control of the insurer.

The government’s commitment to AIG through credit facilities and investments would eventually add up to $182.3 billion.

Beginning late in the week of Nov. 3, the New York Fed, led by President Timothy Geithner, took over negotiations with the banks from AIG, together with the Treasury Department and Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s Federal Reserve. Geithner’s team circulated a draft term sheet outlining how the New York Fed wanted to deal with the swaps — insurance-like contracts that backed soured collateralized-debt obligations.

Subprime Mortgages

CDOs are bundles of debt including subprime mortgages and corporate loans sold to investors by banks.

Part of a sentence in the document was crossed out. It contained a blank space that was intended to show the amount of the haircut the banks would take, according to people who saw the term sheet. After less than a week of private negotiations with the banks, the New York Fed instructed AIG to pay them par, or 100 cents on the dollar. The content of its deliberations has never been made public.

The New York Fed’s decision to pay the banks in full cost AIG — and thus American taxpayers — at least $13 billion. That’s 40 percent of the $32.5 billion AIG paid to retire the swaps. Under the agreement, the government and its taxpayers became owners of the dubious CDOs, whose face value was $62 billion and for which AIG paid the market price of $29.6 billion. The CDOs were shunted into a Fed-run entity called Maiden Lane III.

Habayeb, who left AIG in May, did not return phone calls and an e-mail.

Goldman Sachs

The deal contributed to the more than $14 billion that over 18 months was handed to Goldman Sachs, whose former chairman, Stephen Friedman, was chairman of the board of directors of the New York Fed when the decision was made. Friedman, 71, resigned in May, days after it was disclosed by the Wall Street Journal that he had bought more than 50,000 shares of Goldman Sachs stock following the takeover of AIG. He declined to comment for this article.

In his resignation letter, Friedman said his continued role as chairman had been mischaracterized as improper. Goldman Sachs spokesman Michael DuVally declined to comment.

AIG paid Societe General $16.5 billion, Deutsche Bank $8.5 billion and Merrill Lynch $6.2 billion.

More

Alistair Darling has today been defending the Bank of England’s “lender of last resort” loan to HBOS last October and November.

He has, rightly, said that this type of loan is a key duty of the Bank of England. He also pointed out that HBOS provided collateral for the loan, and that the loan has since been repaid in full. He also defended the decision to keep the loan secret, saying, “The Bank’s assessment at that time was that it was vital that their emergency liquidity assistance operations remained confidential.”

When similar “lender of last resort” support to Northern Rock had been leaked, it had caused a run on the bank, and its collapse. So Mr Darling’s arguments that the loan had to be made, and that it had to be kept secret, are persuasive.

The government are on less solid ground, however, on the issue of the Lloyds takeover of HBOS. Lloyds shareholders, remember, were voting on the takeover at a time when those loans had been taken out by HBOS. However, they were not told about the loans. The existence of them was very clearly material to the takeover.

We have been told that the circular to Lloyds shareholders referred to the bank’s reliance on Bank of England liquidity facilities. This is misleading. The document opaquely referred to the bank’s ongoing reliance on the “availability of Bank of England liquidity facilities”, but did not mention that HBOS had already made use of those facilities. In fact, the circular specifically stated:

“Save for the £4 billion net cash proceeds raised by HBOS in its rights issue in July 2008 and as disclosed in the sections headed ‘Group Overview’, ‘Divisional Review’ and ‘Outlook’ in Part XIII (‘‘HBOS Interim Management Statement 3 November 2008’’) of this document, which sets out the current trading, trends and prospects of the HBOS Group, there has been no significant change in the financial or trading position of the HBOS Group since 30 June 2008.”

The government have claimed that the Lloyds directors knew about the loans. If that is true, it implies serious allegations about the conduct of those directors. For they continued to back the takeover, and kept the loans secret from their shareholders.

If the government are not telling the truth, and the Lloyds directors did not know of the loans, then the spotlight would move to the HBOS directors. They clearly did know about the loans, and in that case did not disclose those material facts when opening their books to Lloyds.

I am not a lawyer. However, it is clear that either the HBOS directors or the Lloyds directors, or both, were in clear infringement of takeover rules at the very least. The government itself, I presume, was not in breach of those rules since it had no duty of disclosure to the Lloyds shareholders.

I believe the Bank of England were right to provide those loans. I believe the Bank and the government were right to keep them secret. But they, and more especially the directors of HBOS and/or Lloyds, were dead wrong to allow the takeover to proceed.

The takeover could have been very simply stopped by the government. There was no need for them to disclose the loans; they could simply have said that the situation at both HBOS and RBS was so serious that an immediate capital injection by the government was required. Then Lloyds could have simply walked away.

Of course the most serious concern of the authorities was to prevent a meltdown of the financial system. But they could have done that without stuffing the Lloyds shareholders.

The authorities have been very keen to prosecute mortgage and insurance brokers for “miss-selling” endowment policies and pensions.

And all the while they were themselves guilty of miss-selling an entire bank.

Last week the U.S. Department of Justice announced the formation of the new Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force. Among other things, this task force is charged with bringing to justice those individuals who caused the worldwide economic collapse. Ummm… OK.  So…does that mean that nobody was minding the store before this? Does this mean that until now there were no laws governing the financial industry or does it just mean that the Department of Justice just wasn’t paying any attention to those existing laws?  Well, let’s see…if they are planning to find and prosecute those people who created the meltdown by deliberately misrepresenting the value of mortgages on the resale market, or if they will be going after the people who deliberately gave out “liar loans”, knowing full well that the people who were being granted the loans could never pay them back, or if they will be going after the people who fraudulently misrepresented their ability to pay for the mortgages in order to play “buy and flip”, I guess that means that there were already laws against these practices. Otherwise they would have to create new laws outlawing past practices, which I believe is frowned upon.

So…if there were already laws on the books that made it illegal to do all the things that led to the meltdown, I have a small question. What were the agents of the Department of Justice doing while the world was collapsing?  What were they doing in the years leading up to the collapse?  Come to think of it, what were all those guys over at the Securities and Exchange Commission doing while the world was hurtling toward the cliff edge?  I think we all know.  They weren’t doing anything to prevent it. Which is why when several people reported Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme to the SEC they were ignored.  Of course, when Bernie’s scheme collapsed and a bunch of rich people lost everything, well…the government had to step in.  Didn’t they?

OK. So how many of those people at the SEC who deliberately ignored Bernie Madoff’s practices over the years have lost their jobs? Better still, how many have been prosecuted for allowing a massive Ponzi scheme to exist when it was their sworn duty to prevent such things from happening?  Or are we saying that no one had the duty to protect us from this sort of fraud? Or are we just that we’ll overlook this dereliction of duty this time?

OK, since we are on the subject…how many people at the Department of Justice are being investigated for doing nothing to prevent the worldwide economic collapse when it was their job to detect and prevent all the sorts of fraud that led to the meltdown?

And, if we want to start looking within the government for people who are culpable (and why shouldn’t we?) should we just confine our investigation to the ranks of the Department of Justice? Does that make sense?  Let’s face it.  This was a truly massive exercise in deception. Our big banks (the ones we saved because we can’t live without them) were selling billions (trillions?) of dollars worth of worthless mortgages to any sucker in the entire world who would be foolish enough to invest in them. Now, I find it hard to believe that there weren’t a lot of people higher up in the former administration who knew exactly what was going on. I expect that most of the wealthy bankers knew too.  All the rich folk were playing a sort of real estate roulette via misrepresented values of U.S. real estate and the mortgages that encumbered these properties.

So, now we have a new Task Force.  Oh, good.  But somehow, I just sort of feel that this small effort is not going to clean out the Augean Stables of Washington or Wall Street.  More likely, it will be more of the usual Washington window dressing.  Oh sure, they’ll probably nail a few unfortunate suckers who were stupid enough to get caught, but the big racketeers who were behind this gargantuan fraud? I don’t think so.  The oligarchs are too deeply embedded, the invisible wealthy have too much power. The real perpetrators will not only get away with the destruction of the world’s economy, they will retain the profits they made at our expense.  It’s just how our system works.

So, to the newly rejuvenated DOJ, I say, “Give ‘em Hell!”

But for me, frankly, I feel a bit like poor Vladimir and Estragon, waiting endlessly for Godot.

It’s a funny old world.  As someone who was made redundant 5 months ago, I have not reached that state of hopelessness, yet!   I still believe that there is a work opportunity out there for me; I just have to find the time to look for it. After a few hours in the fresh air, I headed home with the intention of doing some online job hunting.  I made the mistake of opening the four letters that were lying on my doormat as I now have time to keep my administration up to date.  This was a mistake because I learnt from my bankers that they were unable to pay my standing order to a debt collector for £1.00, due on the 9^th of each month because of lack of funds.  As a result I would lack a further £8.00, as my bankers had to charge me an £8.00 fee for this non-transaction.  They advised kindly that they would defer the fee until at least 14 days after the date of my next statement.  How kind of them!

I immediately fired off a letter to the bank about their parasitic behaviour, which they would no doubt blame on an automatically generated computer letter. I added that I looked forward to the day when computers carried out all jobs at banks; perhaps this would reduce banks fees. I also cancelled the standing order for fear that I could incur further debt if, as was the case my Job Seekers Allowance was not paid on time on another occasion.

I then had to search for an illusive cheque book to draw a cheque for £2.00 (the missed payment and forthcoming payment) in favour of the debt collector. The last thing I wanted was to upset the debt collector with whom I had taken three months to negotiate a reduced payment after redundancy. Knowing how difficult the debt collector is, I thought it would be a good idea to copy the bankers letter to him.  I had nothing to confirm that the Job Seekers Allowance payment went into my bank account late – until I opened the next letter.

The Job Centre had stopped one week Job Seekers Allowance without explanation in August.  As a result I appealed and the next letter that I opened was from the Job Centre acknowledging my appeal and advising that they would notify me of the time and place of the Tribunals Service.  Wow the missing £55 payment was to be dealt with by a Tribunals Service and it took three months to be notified of this.  Clearly, this is going to be another big event that impacts on my job hunting time!

By the time I typed the letters to my bankers and the debt collector, found the cheque book, wrote the cheque, copied two supporting letters, found two stamps and addressed a couple of envelopes a whole two hours had passed and I was no longer in the mood for the online job hunting.  Who said the unemployed don’t have anything to do.

There is a lot of confusion out there as to what home loan or mortgage modification actually is.  I get questions every day about what’s involved, which program is right for me, what’s this Obama program… those are usually followed up by should I do it myself or seek professional help (More on that in another article).

Certainly these are confusing times.  I speak with many homeowners every day who are wondering what is going on and what to do.  The economic downturn we are in has created unparalleled hardship in terms of the homeowner and with the financial sector.

So let’s cut to the chase.  The banks DO NOT WANT YOUR HOME.  What they do want is a performing loan – by performing I mean they want a homeowner that pays their mortgage month in and month out.  Banks are not in the real estate business – they are in the lending business.   If they take back a person’s home then the bank has their money tied up in a home that isn’t earning them any interest or fees.

However, if the homeowner simply cannot make payments then the bank has no choice but to foreclose on the property and take ownership of it to try and recover the principle amount of their loan.  These situations are unfortunate and are happening all around us.  Enter the loan modification program.

It really doesn’t matter if you’re talking about mortgage modification, home loan modification, President Obama’s Making Home Affordable program or any of the other of the many versions of a loan modification.  All these names are referring to same concept that you and your mortgage company have a common interest – to keep you in your home.

Again, the mortgage company is in the business of making money off of loans.  It’s in their best interest to help keep you in your home.  For that reason they are willing to change or modify the terms of the original loan so that the loan is more affordable for the homeowner and they have a higher probability of repaying the loan.

Most homeowners who are experiencing a financial hardship want to stay in their home but are experiencing a decrease in income for one reason or another.  The homeowners hardship and the banks desire to have a performing loan makes a loan modification a perfect match.  In essence you and the bank are partners working together to get through this tough economic situation with a mutually beneficial outcome.

The process of “modifying” a loan refers to the negotiation process that takes place between you (i f you choose to do it by yourself or another person or entity that you have selected to negotiate on your behalf) and your mortgage company.  At the end of this process your mortgage company will present you with new loan terms that may involved any combination of these:  a lower interest rate, extended repayment term, or maybe even forgiveness of a portion of the principle balance owed – all of which combine to lower your monthly payment to a more affordable level.

Once your loan is modified you begin making your newly agreed upon monthly payment.  Your loan is now current with the mortgage company meaning that any late payments are forgiven, waived, or added back into the principle balance of the loan.

There’s much more here to talk about but I’m out of space….  Be sure to check out our website for more details on this subject.

© Justin Richards 2009
Article may be reprinted or transmitted as long as author’s bio below is included with the article

About The Author

In 1998 Mr. Richards graduated from University with a bachelor’s degree in Business Management and Finance. He founded a successful company that helped hundreds of homeowners to get on the path to financial freedom. He also over 7 years experience in the home mortgage finance industry. He loves helping people! Especially when it comes to helping them keep their homes and pay off their debts.

Mr. Richards is happily married with four beautiful children.  He is currently serving as a consultant for SureFast Loan Modification.com

It’s a funny old world.  As someone who was made redundant 5 months ago, I have not reached that state of hopelessness, yet!   I still believe that there is a work opportunity out there for me; I just have to find the time to look for it. After a few hours in the fresh air, I headed home with the intention of doing some online job hunting.  I made the mistake of opening the four letters that were lying on my doormat as I now have time to keep my administration up to date.  This was a mistake because I learnt from bankers that they were unable to pay my standing order to a debt collector for £1.00, due on the 9^th of each month because of lack of funds.  As a result I would lack a further £8.00, as my bankers had to charge me an £8.00 fee for this non-transaction.  They advised kindly that they would defer the fee until at least 14 days after the date of my next statement.  How kind of them.

I immediately fired off a letter to the bankers about their parasitic behaviour, which they would no doubt blame on an automatically generated computer letter. I added that I looked forward to the day when computers carried out all jobs at Barclays; perhaps this would reduce banks fees. I also cancelled the standing order for fear that I could incur further debt if, as was the case my Job Seekers Allowance was not paid on time.

I then had to search for an illusive chequebook to draw a cheque for £2.00 (the missed payment and forthcoming payment) in favour of the debt collector. The last thing I wanted was to upset the debt collector with whom I had taken three months to negotiate a reduced payment after redundancy. Knowing how difficult the debt collector is, I thought it would be a good idea to copy the Barclays letter to them.  I had nothing to confirm that the Job Seekers Allowance payment went into my Barclays account late – until I opened the next letter.

The Job Centre had stopped one week Job Seekers Allowance without explanation in August.  As a result I appealed and the next letter that I opened was from the Job Centre acknowledging my appeal and advising that they would notify me of the time and place of the Tribunals Service.  Wow the missing £55 payment was to be dealt with by a Tribunal Service and it took three months to be notified of this.

By the time I typed the letters to Barclays and the debt collector, found the cheque book, wrote the cheque, copied two supporting letters, found two stamps and addressed a couple of envelopes a whole two hours had passed and I was no longer in the mood for the online job hunting.  Who said the unemployed don’t have anything to do.

How’s your experience mate?

Yesterday I randomly asked one of my friend in India about his experience with ICICI bank, and he repeated what i broadly feel about them – it’s been best so far compared to all the banks he banked with’ for customer care he said that its good however their promotional and sales calls are very irritating. Now this was an interesting comment he made about sales calls, which also made me write this post …

New Account and a New Problem…

I recently opened Non Resident External (NRE) account with ICICI bank. Its just been a month and I faced one major problem. For the past  7-10 days I have been interacting with various people from ICICI bank over phone (making international calls) or having tough time explaining issue to different customer care reps over e mails. I will not go deep into the issue, as I still feel that team is making sincere effort to help out,  however am waiting to see  how long will they take…

Interesting….

Yesterday my mom called me up and told me that somebody from ICICI called up, took your Australia number and they might give you a call. I was wondering if they are trying to reach me out for the issue I am facing with NRE account, I also wondered why will they call up my home in India when I have already given them my Australia contact details. This lady calls me up at around late evening Australia time, being busy with another call that time I asked her to give me a call in 10-15 mins. She did called up again after couple of hours and that was late during night at around 11 pm, am sure she was not aware of my time zone. I was like no issues… at least she might be calling to help me out…

Sir, Why are you not using your Trading account?

However to my surprise (or not so surprised now) she was asking me why am I not using my online share trading account for quiet some time now …what the hell!! Now I did informed her about the time and told her that I am not using my trading account for the reason that I am not in country … I thought of giving her my peace of my mind asking her about other issues I am facing with NRE account, but then realized no point telling her all this as she might not be aware of the fact that I hold NRE account with them too. (and that too interestingly when all accounts are opened at same branch!!!). She was simply doing her job and trying to meet her target of making calls …

Sir, read our research reports and gain more …

Then she went on telling and selling me about ICICI stock research reports and asking me to invest in market as Indian stock market is looking bullish and I should read daily morning reports and weekly calls and invest accordingly to get good returns. I did ask her if she is giving me guarantee of those returns or not (I know its not possible, was just checking how she responds and unnecessarily grilling her..) however it was very late at my end so I asked her to send me all that info on mail and I will see what to do with that. Thank God they had my valid mail id !!

ICICI, Any answers??

1. If sales rep can take so much of effort to call my India home, take my International number and give me a sales call, what’s stopping rep from After sales team to give me a call to understand the issue I am facing, rather they are just playing mail mail …
2. If sales rep can make an effort to get my number, they can also make an effort to do some more research to know that this is Australia number and what should be right time to call up … Put some effort to delight customers mate …
3. In terms of Technology, ICICI is really great in India, however Sid with trading account is still different from Sid with NRE account! I would have felt much better if customer rep should have first updated me on the status of issue I am facing with NRE account and then went on asking me about my trading account. How wonderful it would have been !!
4. And please somebody check why are you so promising on phone that reading ICICI research reports and then investing in market would give good returns … Indian market is looking bullish, this is the right time to invest… things like that ..are you going to take guarantee? I don’t think this is good example of selling ….

Finally…

I have been banking with ICICI bank for quiet some time now. Thanks to their sales force they follow you every where. Be it student account while I was in college, salary account with all my employers till date or Online stock trading account and latest entry being newly opened Non Resident External (NRE) savings account. In my relationship so far I have had my share of good and bad experiences. Overall its been a decent experience compared to all the banks I have dealt with so far in India. They are simply ahead of every other bank in terms of services and technology they provide.

However…

The kind of effort you put to sell the product and start the relationship, please also put similar effort to sustain the relationship and show similar level of enthusiasm for AFTER sales effort.

One rep went ahead to take my number from my mom to give me a sales call in Australia at 11 pm in night… am waiting to see how much time and effort will you make to resolve the problem with my NRE account…

How’s your experience with bank so far? Do share if you have some interesting story or experience.

Al-Megrahi: the convicted Lockerbie bomber might still not be dead as all the Labour stooge doctors and this Labour government ghoulishly promised everyone he would be (he’s a full five days overdue now), but he’s still about to come back and haunt at least one of them. Yes, you guessed it, the King of Sleaze himself, Lord Mandelson of Tripoli.

Incidentally, this partridge shooting party thing of Lord Rothschild that Mandelson attended with, among others, Saif Gaddafi – I can’t help but wonder whether there is any connection between this and today’s “Supreme” Court ruling enabling banks to continue legally to steal however much they like from customers that their extortionate, punitive charges turned into debt slaves in the first place. After all, at least one of the judges was a Rothschild banker.

The point is that wherever you look there’s some sort of Labour shadiness going on – or has been going on- so often with Mandelson right at the very heart of it. Be it Iraq, Afghanistan, the economy, the banks, education, health, PFI, Europe – the list is seemingly endless.

If and when we kick these ruinous crooks out, the Tories will have to uncover anything and everything about Labour’s record of betrayal and deceit, however damaging it might appear potentially to be to the reputation of the country. Hiding it will only cause the rot to creep ever further. Revealing the truth about these long years of Labour corruption and sleaze is the only way gradually to draw Britain out of shadows into which it has been cast by the worst government it has ever had inflicted upon it.