Financial Security -- Banks and Investments

Financial Security -- Banks and Investments

With number of private banks mushrooming in our cities and literally our GSM handsets flooded with solicitations to open relationship with a private financial institutions almost every second, it would be wiser to think a bit before investing.

These guidelines best apply from within Chennai Metropolitan of India. Some of them apply to other countries as well and partially to other cities/towns of India. Perhaps if a reader wishes to share his experiences, publish the same as a comment for others to read and benefit.

All financial institutions employ some form of Telemarketing executives. Their only job is to keep doing outbound calls and getting some leads for new account holders. It is wise to open a good savings account. But it would be more wiser to have an account in a good stable financial institution, rather than lamenting at a later stage, rather than being carried away by sweet, sweeter, sweetest words of the telemarketer.

Of late, ICICI Bank seems to employ very weak security in its ATMs. For the past one week, Chennai news dailies carry the headlines like a security guard in the ATM playing fun with the credit card, mistakenly left behind by a person. Fortunately, the closed TV survellance brought the entire scam jointly powered by the security guard and a couple of guys in ICICI itself leaking the PIN number of the account holder to the security guard. Courtesy: Deccan Chronicle, Chennai.

Be wary of hidden charges being levied. It is your savings account and you own a complete right over what is being levied as charges. If the bank fails to fullfil, just close it off and sweep your account to a competititor.

ATM Security: I have put an article on secure transactions in ATM as a MouthShut review. Read it out here: http://www.mouthshut.com/review/Internet_Vs._Traditional_Banks-44729-1.html

I think these would make banking a pleasure rather than a pain.