College students support to take up liability

If India plays its cards right, by 2025, the country can become the top knowledge production centre of the world, said Dr TS Sridhar, IAS, additional chief secretary of Government of TN, Higher Education Department, Secretariat at Easwari Engineering College.

About 818 students received their degrees, out of which 581 were of graduation and 237 of post graduation. Seventeen students from UG and 10 PG students were ranked in Anna University. Jayachitra, Masters of Engineering (ME), Electronics and Electrical Engineering secured her Gold medal stood first while, Gayathri and Sarathy S bagged the second and third positions, respectively.

Delivering the 12th graduation ceremony address at Easwari Engineering College, TS Sridhar said, “Let the students mantra be, to have an open mind, strive hard, uphold the ethics of their profession and enjoy their work.”

The acquisition of knowledge has therefore been the thrust area throughout the world and sharing the experience of knowledge is a unique culture of our country. India is witnessing a silent revolution and rapidly becoming a global research design and development centres in the all fields, said Sridhar

The chief secretary also went on to say that as Indian industry is becoming globally competitive, it requires people with technical skill sets, to be globally benchmarked and sourced. This will result in the Indian and foreign industrial research and development centres vying with one another to seek the best brains, as young graduands, the students should grab the opportunities and participate in the unprecedented era of economic growth. Harjit Harman Jhanjhar

Dr TR Pachamuthu, Founder Chancellor, SRM Group of Institutions said, “Graduating students have several responsibilities to shoulder. They need to carry their institutions’ reputation forward, because the companies return to the colleges for placements based on the students who have already been working there. Graduation doesn’t mean receiving a degree. It comes with added responsibilities as well.”

SBI holiday-cum-shopping credit card with Yatra.com

State Bank of India and Yatra.com well known online travel portal, has launched a holiday-cum-shopping card that will enable Indian travelers to avail discounts across travel and holiday packages.
The new holiday card will enable travellers to avail discounts across Yatra.com travel and holiday packages, exclusive previews to its deals and benefits, including accelerated rewards on their purchases.
SBI Cards and Yatra.com are looking forward to a very positive response for the holiday credit card because card provides the best travel solutions to customers.
"As a company, we are constantly innovating to provide the best travel solutions to our customers. Our partnership with SBI Cards for the holiday card is a part of this overall approach. We are looking forward to a very positive response for the card," Yatra.com CEO Dhruv Shringi said.
The card has been designed to enable customers win reward points every time they use the card. So, the more they swipe their cards, the closer they get to their next dream holiday, he said.
"Travel continues to emerge as a growing segment for credit cards. The SBI Cards brand is based on the value proposition of 'Make Life Simple' ? the core promise of our brand. The proposition stands testimony to the company's continuous efforts of simplifying the lives of our customers,"
SBI Card mostly based on make life simple proposition. The proposition stands testimony to the company's continuous efforts of simplifying the lives of our customers,"

New Super Premium Credit Card lauched by ICICI Bank

ICICI Bank launched a credit card targeted at the super affluent. Customers will get two different Credit cards, one each from payment gateways American Express and MasterCard, but both will be linked to a single card account.
The card christened Sapphiro is the third offering in its Gemstone collection and is aimed at super affluent segment and the bank's wealth management clientele.
Customers will get two different cards, one each from payment gateways American Express and MasterCard, but both will be linked to a single card account, it added.
Details on who qualifies to get the card and membership charges, if any, were not specified by the bank in the statement.
"The Sapphiro takes the level of privileges for our super affluent and wealth management consumers several notches higher through the high-end experiential rewards on offer," managing director and chief executive Chanda Kochhar said.
Card users can joy privileges offered by Leading Hotels of the World, Atlantis the Palm, Dubai, and Air France-KLM and other offerings like Thursday night movie premieres, complimentary tee-offs at championship golf courses across the world and premium privileges across travel, shopping, wellness and entertainment, the statement said.
Click to Apply for ICICI Credit Card Online

Deutsche Bank infuses Rs.455 cr to grow Indian business

Deutsche Bank AG, Europe’s largest lender with $3.07 trillion (Rs.153 trillion today) of assets, has infused Rs.455 crore to strengthen its Indian operations. The German bank has been investing money every year in its Indian branches since 2007, with 2009 being an exception.
“The capital base pertains only to the India branches and excludes all other Deutsche Bank entities operating in India—equity broking and investment banking, primary dealership, asset management and shared services,” Deutsche Bank said in an emailed statement on Tuesday.
The latest capital infusion will take the bank’s tier I or core capital in the country to a little over Rs.5,500 crore. Tier I capital includes a bank’s equity and reserves.
Deutsche Bank’s India branches have shown a compound annual growth rate of 38% over the last five years. The German bank recently received nod from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to open two branches in Ahmedabad and Surat, which will take its network to 17 outlets.
The additional capital will be used to service and finance the bank’s corporate, institutional and retail clients, said Gunit Chadha, chief executive of Deutsche Bank’s Indian unit.
Corporate and investment banking makes up more than 80% of Deutsche Bank’s business in India. In April 2011, the bank sold its credit card business to IndusInd Bank Ltd, but has maintained that it will continue to invest in retail banking, although this will remain a small part of its overall business in India.
In 2010-11, Deutsche Bank’s profit in India rose 41% to Rs.630 crore, helped by rising income from advances, trading and fees. It earned Rs.1,880.16 crore from advances and investments, up from Rs.1,578.87 crore in the previous year.
This is the right time for foreign banks to strengthen their Indian businesses to service corporate clients in the country, said Manish Ostwal, banking analyst at Kisan Ratilal Choksey Shares and Securities Pvt. Ltd.
“Even larger banks such as Standard Chartered are now focusing on wholesale banking because getting permission to open branches from RBI is difficult, while helping Indian companies to get capital from abroad is their strength, which no other local bank except the State Bank of India can provide,” Ostwal said.
Deutsche Bank’s new branch licences from RBI have come after two years. UK-based Standard Chartered Plc received permission to open three branches—one each in Jaipur, Jodhpur and Thiruvananthapuram in 2010. The last time both the banks opened branches was in 2010.
In India, Deutsche Bank is the smallest of the big foreign banks in the country, including Standard Chartered, Citibank NA and the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp. Ltd (HSBC). RBI distributes 12-18 branches among all foreign banks every year. SBI Recruitment 2012
HSBC and Citibank have not got permission to open any new branch in the current cycle, their spokespersons said.
India’s reputation as one of the fastest growing economies in the world has also led to lenders such as Deutsche Bank in getting capital here, Ostwal said.
“The recent ratings downgrade of the Indian banking sector has made it difficult for Indian banks to access funds and, hence, foreign banks have an opportunity to strengthen their position in areas such as foreign exchange, commodities, merger and acquisitions and structured finance,” the analyst said.
In November, global rating agency Moody’s Investors Service Inc. downgraded the outlook for Indian banks to negative from stable, citing a likely deterioration in asset quality in the next 18 months.

Credit card business will grow robustly

Marketers and market-makers in the financial services industry have for years salivated at the great Indian opportunity for growing the credit cards market.
And it indeed has been a great opportunity and will continue to be so in the coming years. A growing middle class, rising aspirations and an increased propensity to spend by an inherently young population creates heady mix of untapped market opportunity.
The credit cards industry is today coming out of what have truly been testing times. The financial crisis of 2008-2010 remains fresh in our minds. With the tide seeming to have turned finally and with the indicators across almost all key areas looking positive, if not robust, there is fresh optimism in the industry and an almost unanimous positive view that the industry is today placed well for sustained growth.
Learning from the past
Before we look forward to the future, we have to understand the past. As they say, hindsight is always 20-20. The question remains: what went wrong?
The answer lies not just in one reason but a multitude of factors which both issuers and consumers should introspect upon. Credit is, at the end of the day, a powerful tool and a truly flexible option to meet immediate expenses when cash is not at hand.
The credit card, therefore, adroitly addresses medical emergencies, facilitates holidays and travel, or fulfils the aspiration of purchasing that new television or washing machine, with the knowledge that the payment may be done in parts over a period of time, or when that bonuscheque comes in. What will be key is, how both, consumers and card issuers, will treat this extremely powerful tool?
While the global financial crises is ascribed as one reason for the fallout in unsecured lending in India, the impact was also compoundedby the misplaced market growth ambitions of some credit card issuers who wereimmersed in the mantras of market share and market expansion. With access to easy credit card facilities from over-exuberant and ambitious card issuers, customers somehow seemed to have lost the key message: that credit is an important tool, to be used with responsibility and prudence.
Future bright
The future, however, is bright. Several factors strongly indicate that credit card businesses will grow robustly in the coming years. The first is the emergence of strong credit rating agencies in India. Card issuers now have access to complete information of the applicant prior to issuing a card.
The key will be in seeing how the issuers use this information in taking prudent decisions. All information used in determining the creditworthiness of an applicant ultimately hinges on determining the ability and intention of the applicant to pay back the amount spent or borrowed. The expertise and sophistication of issuers in making such judgments, leveraging bureau data and recalibrating their own policies from time to time, will determine how the industry fares infuture.
Use the powerful tool of credit with wisdom
Customers, too, have now started understanding the importance of using credit wisely. With regulators and banks educating customers about the benefit of a good credit history, it is envisaged that better sense will prevail. Both issuers and customers now have the benefit of hindsight! Taur Mittran Di
Card issuers will have to clearly strategise as to which segments they want to operate in. Most card issuers have moved completely away from the mass market segments as the risk-reward equations have just not borne out.
Their predominant focus has been a move to mass affluent segments and high networth individuals. These segments are traditionally more robust and easier to evaluate. Credit underwriting norms have been tightened across the board. Card issuers also have to become more judicious about growing the market purely for that sake, as inactive cards can savage a portfolio.
It is no wonder that of the 28 million cards which were in the marketplace in 2008, only around 20 million exist today. While there has been a huge de-growth in plastics, there has been no slowing down the overall industry spends which have been growing robustly.
All of which goes to show the wastage by the industry in issuing cards to customers who saw no value in the product. At the end of the day, the consumer is king and will patronise a product or a brand which adds enhanced value to his / her life.Free cards, in many ways, were perceived to be free of value and benefits, and, as a corollary, have been freed of customer patronage!
Customer is king
Card issuers will now have to work extra hard in delivering enhanced value to consumers. Creating and managing sophisticated products, constantly enhancing value and innovating on service delivery, will be key drivers of future growth.
It’s a large market, so exercise care
At this stage, the opportunity looks large with a large untapped market potential. Only about 3% of the total personal consumption expenditure in India is done on plastic cards. With the government keen on moving more payments on to electronic media, the spends on plastic cards will continue to grow significantly.
The sustained growth in organised retail, the booming e- commerce space, the aspirations of one of the youngest populations in the world and the strong, globally savvy emerging middle class… all foretell that it can only be a boom time for the credit cards business in the coming years. The key will be to take measured steps based on prudence and good judgment. Let the good times begin!

SBI Cards to customise offers about spending model

Credit-card issuers are increasingly turning into financial counsellors. Come January quarter, SBI Cards, a standalone credit-card company co-promoted by India's largest state-owned bank, plans to launch ‘customised statements' to help its customers know their spending pattern, say over a year.
Based on the analysed spending pattern, which will be shared in the credit-card statements, SBI Cards will provide ‘offers' that would help its customers save on their spends.
“Our new customised statement will tell you where your Rs 100 is going. X per cent in grocery, Y per cent in jewellery, and so on, We want to help customers know how are they spending… where their money is going …and we have offers which are going to help them make smart savings on their spends,” Mr Sanjeev Jain, Chief Executive Officer, GE Capital Business Processes Management Services (GECBP), said.
GECBP handles the technology and processing needs of SBI Cards. The total number of SBI credit-cards issued and outstanding is about two million. Nearly 60 per cent of SBI Cards' customers are receiving e-statements (in electronic form), Mr Jain said.

Personal touch

Any analysis of spending patterns by SBI Cards may not be an industry first in India, but it does show how credit-card issuers are striving to provide better customer experience.
“We believe that we are in an industry where we should be working like an FMCG company works, and not as a finance company. We believe that our touch-points with customers are going to be extremely personal,” Mr Jain said.
Mr Kadambi Narahari, CEO, SBI Cards, said that the company was very customer-centric and plans to increase its presence in Tier-II and Tier-III cities in the coming months.
The credit-card industry in India is still at a fairly nascent stage. The exuberance seen among credit-card issuers prior to 2007-08 has now changed and customers have also become more financially savvy, Mr Narahari noted.

A period of turmoil

The last five years, since the outbreak of the global financial crisis in 2007-08, has been a period of turmoil for the credit-card industry in India. From a high of 27 million cards in 2007-08, the total number of credit-cards outstanding has now come down to about 18 million as of end October 2011, according to latest RBI data.
But SBI Cards is very bullish about the Indian market given the fact that it is still under-penetrated. “As consumerism grows, and as people become comfortable with plastic, the credit-card market is bound to grow. People are already very comfortable with plastic in terms of debit cards. The usage of credit cards probably would ride, in some sense, on that. Our idea here is to see how we can develop the credit-card market and make sure it grows in a big way,” Mr Narahari said.

Cheaper mortgages offer setting up chance

Although rock-bottom interest rates are playing havoc with investment returns, they offer a retirement-planning opportunity that adviser Marguerita Cheng now uses regularly: mortgage refinancing.
“For our reviews, we ask clients to bring in their mortgage statements and investment statements,” said the Ameriprise Financial Inc. financial adviser. “Since you can't control markets but can control what you save and spend, why not lock in a lower rate today and save more money for the future?”
Just last month, Ms. Cheng met with a 55-year-old client, a federal employee, who wanted to replace her 30-year 5.25% mortgage with a 15-year 3.25% mortgage so that she and her semiretired husband, a professor, could be almost debt-free once they stop working.
The couple owes $116,000 on the remaining 20 years of their mortgage, with a monthly principal and interest payment of $1,365. The refinancing not only would shorten the term of mortgage by five years but reduce monthly payments to $1,268.
“These clients have already been making extra principal payments, so if they continue, they can be fully paid off in 10 years,” Ms. Cheng said.
Given the Federal Reserve's decision last month to keep the federal funds rate in the 0% to 0.25% range at least until the end of 2014, many advisers think that replacing higher-cost debt — principally home mortgages and credit card balances — or paying it down faster, offers a savings opportunity that is more attractive than many investment returns.
In addition, advisers, worried about future inflation, feel that it's wise to lock in today's low rates.
“If you have a fixed-rate mortgage, you're happy if inflation goes up: The size of your debt gets smaller in real dollars,” said Christopher Van Slyke, an adviser with Trovena LLC. “If you have a variable-rate loan or a credit card, you're in big trouble.”

Kotak Mahindra Bank buys Barclays credit card portfolio

Kotak Mahindra Bank has acquired the non-performing portfolio of Barclays Bank’s credit card business in India. The deal, experts said, gives momentum to the sale of stressed loan market in the country which has been having a dry run following stringent regulatory norms introduced in 2007.
Last month, Standard Chartered Bank bought the performing portfolio of Barclays’ credit cards business in India. Barclays has decided to exit retail assets business in India and is also looking for buyers for its Rs 3,000 crore retail loan portfolio.
The portfolio acquired by Kotak Credit Card is estimated to be around Rs 250-300 crore and comprise nearly 200,000 cards. The private sector lender’s in-house asset reconstruction team will be responsible for recovering the dues from these accounts.
While the deal value was not immediately known, banks in India have to follow the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) guidelines on valuation of stressed asset sale.
According to RBI guidelines released in October, 2007 banks while selling non-performing assets have to work out the net present value of the estimated cash flow associated with the realisable value of the available securities net of the cost of realisation. The sale price, generally, should not be lower than the net present value.
Banks in India have once again expanding their credit cards businesses aggressively after a gap of nearly three years.
Standard Chartered Bank became the fifth largest credit card issuer in the country after it bought 170,000 credit cards from Barclays. The foreign lender is believed to have acquired this portfolio at a hefty discount to the book value, which was estimated around Rs 180-200 crore.
The transaction was the second buy-out in the credit card space following IndusInd Bank's acquisition of Deutsche Bank's credit cards business earlier in 2011. Yaad Teri Awarapan 2 Mp3 Song
IndusInd Bank bought 200,000 cards portfolio from Deutsche Bank including the foreign lender's operating platform, technology, and staff. The private bank launched 'IndusInd Credit Cards' on June 1, 2011 and aims to grow the portfolio four-fold to Rs 800-900 crore within three years.
"We believe after three to four years of bloodbath and washout, the credit card industry is now ready to take off once again. This is a high-risk, high-reward business, and we think if we manage the risks properly, the rewards will be higher now," Romesh Sobti, managing director and chief executive of IndusInd Bank, told Business Standard in an interview post acquisition of the cards business.
Even the established players have turned aggressive in growing their credit cards operations.
HDFC Bank, the largest issuer of credit cards in India, aims to double its portfolio in the next couple of years. The bank, which has 5.05 million cards, expects its portfolio to touch 10 million in two years, including two million cards exclusively for its women customers.
The bank also launched 'Infinia' cards last year for the uber-rich community, positioning it against the American Express, or Amex cards.
Bankers said that unlike the last time, there will not be significant erosion in the banks' asset quality, since the expansion strategies are backed by rich information on borrowers' credit histories obtained from the credit bureaus.
In September, 2011 the number of outstanding cards in the industry increased for the first time in eight months to 17.6 million. The number of cards has remained around the same level since then.

Making card transactions goes more secure in Future

When we swipe our card at shopping malls and restaurants or use it at the ATM to withdraw cash and pay utility bills, we are under the constant threat of our cards being counterfeited. Besides, if you lose your card, someone can misuse the time lag, between your losing and blocking the card, to swipe and imitate your signature at the point of sale (POS).

• What you can do

This mandate implies that more banks would come out with chip-based cards and they would look at including more customers, rather than offering it to a select category.
State Bank of India, for example, since mid–2011, offers EMV chip credit card to almost all its new customers.
If you are an existing SBI Card customer, check with the bank. You could be entitled to a chip card on renewal.
Besides, the RBI has also said that by June 30, 2013, banks must issue EMV chip and PIN-based credit/debit cards to customers who have made at least one purchase using their debit/credit card in a foreign location.
Three, if you are a customer of a bank that currently issues chip cards, visit your branch. If you have a credit card with dated credit limits or a higher average balance which entitles you to a debit card with enhanced features, you may be eligible for an upgrade to a chip card.
Going by the guidelines, the infrastructure is expected to catch up quickly too. In fact the working group report (May 2011) mentions that about 90 per cent of the POS terminals are already chip-ready.
Says Dhruv Shah, Product Manager, Electracard Services, “While EMV-supporting ATMs are not yet available in India, switches, which drive the transaction processing at ATMs, are already geared to support EMV transactions.”
Moreover, as EMV adoption rates vary worldwide, none of the issuers give you cards that are only chip-based.
All chip cards contain the magnetic stripe at the back. So, while an EMV-compliant machine will use the chip, a non-EMV machine can still process your transaction using the magnetic stripe.
That way, at least some of your transactions will be more secure.
Plastic money has made life much easier for all of us. But unless we have had a personal experience, we don't realize how much of a security nightmare it can be. Here are a few things that will make our card transactions more secure.

• Chip cards reduce risk

Both these risks can be reduced to a great extent if you use cards that are ‘chip' based rather than ‘magnetic stripe' based and cards that require a PIN to be entered at POS terminals.
Unlike magnetic stripe cards, chip cards (also called EMV cards) use superior technology that helps guard against skimming and cloning. PIN requirement at POS terminals brings in a second layer of authentication, making misuse of stolen cards difficult.

Best way to simplify credit card usage

Ajay has to first deal with the question of whether he needs multiple credit cards and, if so, how many. Having more than one card is useful when a large payment has to be made or when a particular card cannot be used.
Ideally, the cards should have different affiliations, such as MasterCard and Visa. It is also a good idea for Ajay to dedicate one card for official use, so that there is no confusion while claiming reimbursement for payments.
Since his job involves a lot of travelling, using a co-branded card that is linked to an airline will help him in official use as he can get credit for usage. Two cards for personal use and one for work-related expenses should be enough for his needs.
While reducing the number of cards, Ajay should consider retaining older cards with a good credit history since they are likely to have a positive impact on his credit score. The other factors he needs to consider include the acceptance of the card, authorised limits, billing cycles and costs associated.
The cards that he should first consider closing are those that are linked to (DJ H Jawani 2) stores or products since they add very little value and may even encourage spending.
Ajay should also set up an online payment process for his card, so that he is able to pay his bills from his bank account using the Internet or mobile banking services. Several online services enable paying bills on time, which Ajay should make use of. He should set in place a system to keep track of the expenses charged, the payment and dates of payments.
Having a place to keep credit card slips will make it easy to access them for checking against card statements. He should sign up for online/mobile reminders of due dates, online statements and payment facility. These are things that Ajay can do to continue enjoying credit facilities in an efficient manner.