ICICI Applicants feedback required

wsanderson

You lot should all count yourself lucky. According to ICICI I have undergone a sex change! After applying to open an account I received an e-mail addressed to Ms. William Sanderson and was asked to send a cheque payable to Ms. William Sanderson.
This happened at the begining of the week. I am still awaiting a reply to the e-mail I sent pointing out their mistake.

DocProc

Just to say my wife and I have now successfully each opened a HISAVE account.

Everything so far has proceeded satisfactorily and in a timely manner.

It is our opinion that ICICI bank staff are still familiarising themselves with their own procedures, as indeed are their new customers, some of whom may not have not done Internet banking before.

Yes, we do have a few adverse comments.

Two of these are:

1. We do not like a '6 numbers only' Password. We would prefer to see a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters and numerical digits, totalling from say 8 to 10 digits in length as being the norm.

Nevertheless, one can (and should) change one's existing '6 numbers Password' frequently. So our criticism above can be minimised in importance.

2. The green envelopes containing our Passwords both arrived in the mail this morning. Each of the two green envelopes had inadequate adhesive and were unstuck along one end and along one side. Someone (at ICICI Bank?) had taken the trouble to use a black felt tip and strike out [strike]'ICICI Bank Ltd'[/strike], 21 Knightsbridsge, London SW1X 7LY, UK on the 'If undelivered, please return to: back of the envelope. This did not impress us one bit!

I hasten to add that the Secure Password Utility Forms inside these envelopes WERE 100% INTACT AND STILL 100% SEALED and had not been compromised in any way. So we were both quite happy with the integrity of each of our two Passwords.

Actually, the very first thing you are asked to do when you 'Log in' for the very first time, is to 'Change your Password'

Nevertheless, the bank can be criticised for allowing 'Password containing mail' to be sent out in such a lackaday fashion. It smacks of unthoroughess and if they are unthorough here on a topic, which obviously has visible PR status, one wonders about other matters where thoroughness and the highest standards of management and checking are required.

Like others we are now deliberating on the biggy question:

How much of our money should we let this imperfect bank organisation have?

masonic

glennh wrote:

Thanks for all the feedback and it's usefull to see sums written down. How come Martin hasn't got B&B on his Top payer list? Northern Rock are down to 5.01% and Cahoot are down to 4.85% so B&B seems better although there's minimum of £1000.

I'll think I'll check to see if the interest rate will change and open a B&B account if not. One thing it does say is 'third party withdrawals are not permitted'. Does this mean I won't be able to get my solicitor to do a telegraphic transfer?

Bad news: according to this thread, B&B are cutting their rate to 4.85% from 4th Sept. NR may now be your best bet as they have cut already.

Edit: BTW, B&B was in Martin's top payer list.

cdsheldon

A WARNING - CHECK THE INTEREST PAID.

Those "lucky" people who have managed to get their accounts up and running with ICICI Bank should have received their interest for August by now. But have you received the correct amount? I have calculated that I should have received £2.03 based on the annual rate of 5.27%. but only received £1.30, equivalent to just 3.37%.

I am also having problems transfering money to my ICICI account. Four of my requests although shown as processed, have never arrived.

Take Martin's advice, go elsewhere - there are plently of places paying more than 3.37%.

Alfie_E

cdsheldon wrote:

I have calculated that I should have received £2.03 based on the annual rate of 5.27%. but only received £1.30, equivalent to just 3.37%.

There is a delay between the deposit date and the date at which the funds are part of the balance on which interest is paid. My initial cheque has a deposit date of 1 July. The money didn't come out of my current account until 5 July. I can only assume ICICI received the funds during 7 July, as my calculations make interest paid for 8 July onwards. If you add on five working days from the deposit date shown in your statement, do the figures then tally?

My interest for August is correct. There were no further transactions on the account, because it took until late into August to get my password. My first direct debit transfer successfully arrived at the start of September. I'm hoping to find there is one less day's delay between money leaving my current account and interest being paid by ICICI.

dickietruncheon

ICICI has a similar ring to BCCI. Be warned. I predict massive fraud, incompetance and 1000s of greedy savers losing £1000s and then looking for compensation .

masonic

dickietruncheon wrote:

ICICI has a similar ring to BCCI. Be warned. I predict massive fraud, incompetance and 1000s of greedy savers losing £1000s and then looking for compensation .

I was under the impression that the FSA had a massive crackdown in its regulations to prevent something like that happening again.

Clearly, ICICI's customer services is pants, but I don't think that's grounds to suspect them of money laundering, bribery etc. After all, Abbey had similar problems in April with its postal ISA.

DocProc

dickietruncheon

Apart from 'Cs' and an 'I' there is little similarity. Regulatory, auditing and also money laundering rules are now exceedingly tough. ICICI bank appers to be making its name lending mostly to 'small scale customers'

Here's some interesting stuff about ICICI bank, who has LloydsTSB plc as a partner, for those who want to do some 'research' on it:

http://us.rediff.com/money/2005/aug/18forbes.htm

This is quite a 'go-ahead' and 'modern' project too:

http://www.finextra.com/fullstory.asp?pf=y&id=14173

Anyone remember Nick Leeson from Barings Bank? Well, here's an uptodate ICICI version on that kind of situation, taken today from:

http://www.business-standard.com/common/storypage.php?hpFlag=Y&chklogin=N&autono=199117&leftnm=lmnu3&lselect=0&leftindx=3

ICICI Bank sacks 5 officials
Our Banking Bureau / Mumbai September 3, 2005

ICICI Bank has suspended its three middle level officials from the treasury division dealing in forex, and two from the back office operations, in an incident involving the breach of trading limits, leading to a loss to the bank. This is the first case of suspension after the merger of ICICI and ICICI Bank.

“The middle level traders overstepped limits. The back office, which has on line access to the trading platform could have been more attentive for taking proactive steps,” Mor said.

The incident happened in early August, and the overstepping of limits of these traders was detected by automated monitoring systems.

The bank has informed the banking sector regulator, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) about the breach and taken action against the officials, ICICI Bank Executive Director, Nachiket Mor said today. The amount lost is less than Rs 1 crore.

Mor said that the bank had already instituted an enquiry into the incident. Further course of action would depend on the findings. Prima facie, the bank would have to assume that the breach of limits was a deliberate action and outcome of neglect.

Explaining the rationale behind the suspension, Mor said “We wanted to send out strong signals. Such breaches are not acceptable and traders should know the limits and follow the code of conduct.” The bank does issue warnings and remove the traders out of treasury for breaches.

The ICICI Bank treasury has over 120 traders, who deal in bonds, foreign exchange, securities and equities daily. The trading limits are set for each trader based on many factors, including the nature of the financial product and their experience.

The daily turnover of the treasury of the bank is Rs 3,000 crore.

shropslad

I recently applied for a savings account and here is my experience. My initial application was made through their web page on 17th Aug. Yesterday the password arrived by post and the account is showing my intial deposit. The only 'complaint' I have is, as mentioned above, the envelope containing the password was open on one side. However, the slip containing the password was intact 100%.

HGLTsuperstar

Am still awaiting my password, so can't access my account!