Month: December 2012

Why you should fill the Insurance Policy form yourself ?

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

If I ask you to fill an application form that has 10 Objective questions and 10 subjective questions, would you consider filling it up yourself? NOPE!

Similarly, while taking a life insurance or health insurance policy (term plan, ULIP, Endowment, Health Insurance), we are lazy to fill up the form ourselves. Why? Obviously because it’s too much of work . So, agents take up the task of filling up the form and now the power is in their hands. Some agents, whose whole focus is on their commissions, make sure that no information is disclosed which can lead to policy application rejection or increase in premium etc. just to make sure the policy is issued quickly (hassle free). They will chose ‘NO’ in for all the questions like “are you a smoker?” -NO, “Do you have any illness?” NO, “Did your parent die because of any serious illness” NO, etc etc… and you don’t even bother to check it out. You just put your signature as you are already in hurry to submit the documents for tax claim in your office.

Insurance Policy Form

Claim Rejection due to wrong Information in Form

This is a serious issue and your claim will be rejected because the information provided in the proposal form is wrong, because you never followed the procedure to buy insurance properly. So make sure that you fill up the form yourself or in worst case let your agent fill it up, but check each and every point before submitting it to the insurance company or let your agent fill it one by one and tell him what to fill at each place i.e. dictate your answers.

Let me share with you some cases where agents filled up the form and what were the experiences of different people

Case 1 : I have sbi life saral shield term insurance plan of 15L for 30 yrs term for which i m paying 4953/- premium. After reading this article, i have gone through my policy document in which they have given scanned copy of filled up form. actually agent has filled up the form. i m a smoker but in the form it shows non-smoker.  – Alpesh

Case 2 : Recently, I tried to purchase a term plan through an LIC Direct Marketer. He wouldn’t let me fill the form and insisted that I just sign at various points on the form. When it came to filling up the information about family, his comment was: “Let’s just say old age as the reason for your parents’ demise. LIC won’t bother to check if the age is 60 and beyond.” That comment broke the deal. I didn’t buy the policy. – Vinaya

Case 3 : Funny thing. I just signed up for a term policy today with Kotak. The agent filled in the form on his own. And then was hesitant to correct it when i pointed out that my parents have high BP. Also, I’m in between jobs right now. But the agent insisted on writing my previous employers name & address under “current employer” – saying that he cant write it as ‘in between jobs’ or ‘unemployed’. – Richa

You can see that in all these cases, the agent tried to fill up information without even discussing it with client. May be they are used to it and are very sure that even clients don’t pay any attention to it, but at some point of time it’s going to hurt you very badly.

How many of you have/did not fill your proposal form or never checked your proposal form and what information was given in that? Note that it’s your proposal form, so whatever is mentioned there is given by you and only you, irrespective of who filled it.

Kindly share your cases and experiences

One Idiot – A fun & nice movie by IDFC on Financial Literacy

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

IDFC foundation has released a small 30 minutes movie called “One Idiot” to spread financial literacy for today’s generation which feels that life is all about spending and looking “cool”. The movie is directed by Amol Gupte, who had also directed the movie “Taare Zameen Par”. The movie ‘One Idiot’, shows how a bunch of students who are in their early 20’s make fun of a guy who looks dumb and does not believe in showing off, only to find out later one day that he is actually a multi millionaire, living and enjoying his life. The overall message of the movie is that you have to be prudent and responsible when it comes to money and start your systematic investments however small they are and over a long term, you will be on path of financial freedom.

Direct link to Movie

I watched the movie few months back when someone from IDFC had asked for my comments on the movie. Overall I think you should watch this movie and also share it with your children who are in school and going to enter their working life. Watch the movie and share what you liked about the movie ? Do you think its able to give that message of “saving and investing that money is important from starting” .

4 things to do, when you are forced to buy a Policy with Home Loan !

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

Have you even seen cases where when a person wants to get a home loan, and the bank or the lender says that taking some kind of ULIP policy or some other kind of insurance product is mandatory if you want the loan to be approved? Most of times, banks impose this restriction in the final stages of loan approval process because that’s the time when most of the customer will not reject the option and will forcefully go for it, because they don’t want to lose the home loan for this tiny roadblock.

Policy Forced Selling with Home Loan

If you are thinking about 50 lacs of home loan, you will not get stopped by this 40,000 per annum premium policy. Here is a case which was discussed on our jagoinvestor forum.

I recently planned to buy a home. So, after market research I approached SBI bank. But the manager informed by saying that ‘I need to take SBI Insurance along with home loan’ else will not sanction SBI home loan. Please let me know whether is it the case with SBI home loans?

Cross Selling is Unfair – IRDA

Some customers falls for these kind of gimmicks, but in reality there is no compulsion to buy any kind of product with home loan. It’s just a marketing gimmick and a way to exploit people. IRDA itself has clarified in its circular that this kind of bundling or forced selling is not fair and should be stopped. However banks still continue to ask customers to buy the insurance along with home loans and ill treat them.

Tying is defined as two or more products packaged together where at least one of the products is not sold separately while Bundling occurs when products are packaged but are also available separately. There could be various issues of concern for the consumer that arise from cross-selling. Packaging two or more products could become unfair to the consumer when it impedes his or her choice or makes price comparisons difficult or impossible.

One of the major concerns is bringing in transparency to prevent unfair commercial practices. At the same time, cross-selling facilitates service providers to use existing channels to reach out to those who are looking to buy insurance products. It is, however, necessary to ensure that the consumer is not put to any kind of disadvantage because of the packaging.

J. HARI NARAYAN
CHAIRMAN (IRDA)

So what’s the way out? It might be, that if you are careless on documentation front, the bank might sell you the policy and you come to know about it very late; like it happened in this case where Axis bank sold life insurance along with home loan to this guy. While you always have an option to go to consumer court over the issue, that comes a little later.

What way you can settle this at the bank level itself? The main idea is to communicate to bank officials that you are not a easy bait and are an informed investor who knows his rights as a customer. Below are a few things you can do in a situation when bank tells you “Sir – Insurance is compulsory along with home loan, else it will not be processed”

What to do when forced to buy insurance along with home loan ? Lets see 4 tips which you can use when you are told by your lender that some kind of policy is mandatory to buy along with home loan.

Option 1 – Directly tell them, you know the rules

One of the simple things you can do is tell them straight forward that you know the rules on this, you are aware about the RBI circular that these practices are not fair and ask the bank for an explanation on how they are still doing it. Also tell them, that you have yourself helped another friend of yours to get a home loan without the bundled insurance when XYZ bank asked for it. You can tell them that you have already filed for RTI to IRDA and asked for this, if they want you can bring the RTI reply from IRDA. This first tip itself should be enough for your home loan provider to come to the right path.

Option 2 – Reject the Offer and Wait – They will come back

When you show desperation, they know you will do anything for getting a home loan and that’s one reason why they put forward such idiotic restrictions of taking policies. Another thing you should do in these kind of situations is that you can just reject the offer totally and tell them that you really are not so desperate to get the home loan, you can wait for some months or you already know other bank officials who have not put forward such kind of restrictions . In all probabilities, they will just come on track or if not that time, they will be back to you later saying – “Sorry Sir, we take back that restriction .. blah blah… ”  This is exactly what happened with Muthu Krishnan which he shared on this blog some time back

IDBI tried to con me in similar manner. I told them that I don’t need their loan. After two days, they called back and offered loan without insurance which i accepted. Though you are absolutely desperate for loan, do not show it to the banks. The banks are very desperate to disburse loans as it is their livelihood and not ours. They will come around to our terms.

Option 3 – Ask them to give it in writing

The next option is to look at the bank official and ask him to give in writing that “Buying the Policy is mandatory along with Home Insurance” and also tell them you are thinking of inquiring about this with banking ombudsman because you have already filed a case for your friend and got compensation for this. If they are not ready to give it in writing, tell them that you don’t need home loan from them anyways, but you will still file a complaint with Banking Ombudsman to see what can happen and politely ask the official if he can also share his Name, designation and Employee id for additional information.

Option 4 – Take the Policy and return back in Free Lookup period

This is the last option, but if you feel that other options are great but you are victim of family pressure and at this time just need to go ahead even though you are disgusted by this force game, just go ahead with policy and pay the premium for first year. Then be a little alert and make sure the moment you get policy documents, just initiate the process of returning back the policy within the 15 day free look-up period . For those who do not know, the free look up period starts from the day you get the policy in your hands, not from the day you bought the policy. This helpful tip was shared by one of the person who shared his case with ICICI mis selling.

Conclusion

Any kind of loan should not be bundled with other products. Most of the bank officials try to pressurize the customers just to meet their deadlines and targets. So do not fall for forced selling and act like an informed and powerful customer.

Have you come across a situation like this? Can you share?

File RTI against PSU banks and get all information you wanted ever !

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

We have already done an article on how to use RTI for any kind of EPF related issues because EPFO is an govt organisation and comes under the purview of RTI . But a lot of people do not know that even PSU Banks come under RTI and if you have any issues with them, you can always file a RTI against them and get any kind of information you want.

So that means SBI, Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, Punjab national Bank, Carana Bank, Vijaya Bank, Bank of Maharashtra and all other PSU banks (govt owned) will come under RTI . So the next question is what kind of situations can arise, when a person can file a RTI application. Lets see this – Prashant from Agra, had an issue with Canara Bank over the bank locker

My brother’s bank account is at canara bank, and he had taken a LOCKER there. He made his wife as joint account holder and with attorney. Now when she took locker keys to her home without informing we gave the manager an application that in case locker is secretly opened plz inform us. But after few days the lady mailed him(to manager) some application/or anything on his email.

when my brother n mother went to operate he stopped us.. and shouted at us in front of everyone as if we are thieves(account is in name of my brother). Manager is even not ready to show that email or copy of the same. Neither did he informed any of the 3 phone numbers given in application by us previously (he assured us to do the same). He yelled us out of bank(account is 12 year old in same branch) saying that he will FREEZE LOCKER. My brother the rightful owner wants to open his own account having keys to the locker yet not allowed.

Now in this issue, you can see that bank has not treated Prashant well and also not giving him the information properly. The bank people are also mishandling his locker. At this moment, Prashant can just file a RTI application and ask all those queries which he wanted to know. And within next 30-35 days , he should get the reply from the bank.

Let me share with you all 2 more real life incidents on how people used RTI against their PSU banks and got their work done !

1. How Kranti Used RTI against his Bank 

My ATM is locked due to some unknown reason. As usual customer-care directed me to contact branch. In branch a lady checks some info and said that this can not happen here, ATM will be unlocked by Mumbai main branch and advice me for new ATM card. At this time I have questioned them that in this case you will deduct charges from my saving account. Reply of lady was awesome, she simple blast on me and said that you people want everything free of cost. At that time I feel that there is no point in arguing with that lady and way back to my home.

After one week of try,suddenly I thought of applying RTI on this issue. I have met the branch manager and ask for how to apply RTI on this issue. Suddenly after listening name of RTI, bank manager came into action and directed same lady to solve this issue asap and said that if his issue is not resolved, he will file RTI. Surprisely my ATM is unlocked within minutes of action. In my case only name of RTI works wonder:)

2. How Elahi used RTI against SBi

RTI is very powerful and highly useful tool. Here is my experience with SBI. I have housing loan with SBI and they had charged extra interest of Rs. 73000 to me. So I filed RTI to get the detailed information of change in interest rates and to conform that my housing loan interest rate will be (SBAR – % concession.) After getting this information, I filed complaint with Branch and RACPC pune, giving them detailed interest calculations of interest for 4 years and asked them to refund my money. Waited for 3 weeks. SBI customer charted says that “Branch has to solve the problem withing 3 weeks elase wive written reply to customer telling why it is not solved and how much additional time is needed.”

After 3 weeks I pointed SBI to this clause ans asked for explaination through email. Then wheels started moving faster. Got my cresit within 2 hours. But it was not as per my calculation. I again explained them my claculations and after 3 credits they got their calculation right ! I got my money back completely. RTI works wonder. And every government and semi-govt. organisations have citizens charter. Use it for your purpose.

Note that Right to information (RTI) will only help a person get some information, after that he will have to follow up on that matter, but in today’s world, even if you get the correct data about something, its a big thing.

When to use RTI against PSU bank ?

  • When the bank is not giving you correct information about your home loan related items like interest rates, prepayment, documentation issues.
  • When you are not satisfied by bank behaviour, its service, the terms and conditions etc
  • When bank asks you some unjustified things like opening a FD for locker, buying some policy before locker can be opened !
  • When you feel that bank has done something against their own terms and conditions and is not entertaining you.
  • When you need any information from bank which you cant get directly !

Below is a video on RTI done by Sailesh Gandhi for Moneylife. Have a look at these video’s and understand how to effectively use Right to information in your life.

Branch Heads are also the CPIO’s !

When you file a RTI letter, it has to be addressed to Central Public Information Officer (CPIO) or Central Assistant Public Information Officer (CAPIO). Now all the major branch heads of PSU Banks are also CPIO’s and you can directly write the RTI letter to the branch head, but address them as CPIO’s . So in the place of address, mention the branch name and the name of the bank with full address. Some of the PSU banks also allow giving the RTI applications by hand to the Branch heads, but I would suggest try it on your own risk, sending the letter by registered post will be much better.

Steps for writing the RTI application against Bank

1. Download this RTI Template for Banks (Taken from Wealth Club)

2. Put the address and branch name of your Bank

3. Write down all the other details like name, address, email, phone and other details if any.

4. Put the information required at the appropriate place in the template. Make sure the question is brief and too the point.

5. Buy a postal order for Rs 10 , favoring to CPIO, Branch name, address (this you need to fill yourself).

6. Make sure you write the postal order number in the RTI letter, change it with your order number.

7. Take a print out and send the RTI letter via registered post or Speed post to the same address as Bank branch.

8. Wait for next 30-60 days for the reply and if you dont get it , escalate it further !

Note : You can also watch a detailed video course called “How to Use RTI in your financial life” (4 part video series , 19 min total running time) under our courses section of Jagoinvestor Wealth Club, incase you are a member.

Conclusion

So in this article, you have learned how you can also file RTI applications against a Public sector Bank in India and get all those information which you are not getting in proper manner otherwise.

End your 2012 with a BANG , Join Action Month

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

How do you want your 2012 to end? We always have to much of pending tasks in financial life. We know that the time required to complete most of the tasks is pretty small one and if we just dedicated 1 full day, most of those tasks will be completed within no time, but we keep delaying it.

Action month is back !

yearl We are conducting an Action month called “How do you want to end your 2012” for our wealth club members. We wanted to do this action month for our wealth club and then realized that why not include everyone, as its such a big event after a long time, hence we thought of sharing it with everyone. Last time we had a hugely successful action month and hundreds of readers completed so many tasks in their financial life within few days time. Go to the main Action Month page on Jagoinvestor Wealth Club. Listen to the Action Month Audio to understand what it is all about This time its your turn to complete those pending things and also do a yearly review. The theme of this action month is “How do you want to end your 2012” . We want to make sure that when 2012 ends, you complete most important pending tasks which you have been delaying from long and also have a clear view about where you stand in your financial life.

How to be part of this Action Month ?

Step 1 – Register for Action Month Action Month is CLOSED now Step 2 – Review your 2012 and complete pending things The next step is to review your 2012 and see if you are on track or not and then list down the pending items you want to complete before 2012 ends. When you register, you get a support excel sheet also. Wealth Club members already have access to yearly review checklist sheet. Step 3 – Action Month ends and share your success story Once you complete your action month, you can then share your actions and what all you did, It would be a great thing to let others know of your success and how you ended your 2012 and have planned your 2013. Go to the main Action Month page on Jagoinvestor Wealth Club.

For all the Participants

The registrations are open for only next 4 days and this action month will run for only till 31st Dec 2012. Note that all the updates about what you are doing in action month has to be done on the main Action month page on Jagoinvestor Wealth Club. Also the best sharing at the end of the Action Month will get a surprise gift from us.

Are you following these 6 rules of great financial life ?

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

Everything in life has basic ground rules, which we should never forget. You can consider these ground rules as the pillars of your decision making activity. Even our financial lives have some ground rules to follow in order to have a great and enriching life. Over the last 5 years of writing this blog and having interacted with thousands of people, I can clearly conclude that more than making right decisions in financial life, you should focus on avoiding bad decisions. I have seen so many people who have been careful, not messed up things and their financial life quality is really awesome. They have not lost wealth due to foolish mistakes and live a clean financial life overall and while they feel lag behind others, I can say they are ahead of others in many ways. Yes – They have not taken awesome decisions, but the best part is they have not made terrible mistakes either. Lets explore more on this today

Pillars of a great financial life

6 pillers of great financial life

Now I am going to talk about 6 areas of financial life which are like pillers. If you are clear about these ground rules and start some serious work on all of them, your overall quality of financial life should go up. But having said that, its a long term activity !

1. Rule of Earning

“Do not depend on a single income. Invest and create a second/ third source of income”

So many people just never focus on this. A person in a job has just taken it as his fate, that his only source of income will be his Salary. For him alternate source of income other than his salary is like a distant dream which he can only see, but could not achieve. The same happens with a businessman at times. He depends solely on his business income. Why? Why not also have some other passive income from other non-core business area.

Atleast start thinking in that direction ? Lets Explore some extra income source. I dont say, it need to be some grand income, but lets make some start atleast, if not in action taking, atleast in thinking about it, I personally tasted some passive income from my first book royalty, while it was not a big one (opposite to what people think) , it atleast gave me some good feeling. Other than our business income, I had some source of income from other stream. Thats important ! . It can be a small income, not a grand one . Thats okay ! . Whatever is your specialization, you must be god gifted into some or the other thing in life, start sharing about it with world by writing about it, you never know when you start making fans for yourself and it might bring some opportunity to you in life. Nandish has written a nice piece of “Giving your Gifts to the world” on our Jagoinvestor Wealth Club, check it out . If you are damn good about something , why not offer consulting or accept freelance projects in your own capacity.

Forget all that, at minimum, If you are a person who comes home early, why not take some tutions to make few extra bucks. Its not about earning a little more, its about the habit of creating an extra income. You never know when, in the future when you might have to look at it seriously! . So the point is, go ahead and put a small seed in your head about “Creating Alternate income” .

2. Rule of Spending

“If you buy things that you do not need, you may soon have to sell things you need”

People are over spending. There is no doubt about this. Just look at your own expenses & write them down. Question each of your expenses, do you really need them? Is it out of necessity or just a desire which you can avoided altogether or atleast minimized? The answer will be in front of you. If you have not yet tracked where your money is going and if you are our special member at Wealth Club, you might want to download this Budget Template.

One of our Bangalore clients told us last year that he has seen a lot of his friends, who buy a car on the first day of getting the job! and mostly they dont need it. Its either to show off, or just that short term desire of own it, without thinking about long term aspects of it. Its just unplanned!. Then there are people buying 25 shirts, when they only need only 12. There are people, who don’t have the `haisiyat` of driving an Alto Car, but they have bought a Honda City just to show off !

It just violates the rule of spending!.

Slowly but surely, this will take them towards disaster. It will come as surprise (to them) one day. Spending is a core activity of your life. You earn so that you can spend it, nothing wrong with it, but there is a difference between spending and over-spending. Understand it today to make your future more robust.

3. Rule of Savings

“Do not invest what is left after spending, instead spend after you save/invest”

This is directly related to rule 2 above. If you do not control your spending, you can never be able to save much and then you will never be able to give your best for your wealth creation. Fix this clearly & prominently in your head. For most people the formula is

Saving = Income – Expenses

If you rely on the natural flow of life, you can never save. Life will give you all the reasons why you can only save amount X . At times Nandish tells me – “Manish , you know what, if you do not define the purpose for your money, money will find its own purpose” . This is very strong point , for a moment, just slow down and think about it. you will realise what it means. You need to control the flow of money and you have to create that flow yourself.

I just ask to most of the people to do this 1 min experiment. I tell them – “Imagine your employer says that from next month, you will get a salary cut of 10% and all you will get is just 90% in your income. For most of the people, will they not be able to live the same life as they lived till now ? If the answer is YES , then why are they waiting for ? Why not give that small salary cut to yourself as your gift to your financial life. You will enjoy this salary cut in coming years. trust me.

So your next task today is tell your family, yourself and your relatives that from now on you will be living on just 90% of your salary – PERIOD! . Start doing it and slowly you will see that magically – you will be able to manage things – Try it! It works! .Your assets , your net worth , and every bit of wealth comes from those tiny savings you consistently do for years. That’s the most important ingredient part of your wealth creation. If you do not focus on optimizing it, nothing else will work out!

4. Rule of taking Risk

“Never test the depth of the river with both your feet”

There is a very thin line between risk and calculated-risk. Calculated risk is the risk which is taken after due thought, and by accepting the future consequences and a thought full evaluation of how the odds are stacked.

If you invest a big sum of money in stocks, just because markets are going up and you do not want to miss the train, and just because that guy on CNBC said you should , then you are taking a risk. You will not be able to sleep at night for sure.

However if you look at the current market and tell yourself that – “Markets have not moved up from last 5 years, and this kind of situation in past have been proven to give great returns in next 5 years and you are economically ready to loose up to 30% of your money, and thats why you choose to invest in stocks, then its a calculated risk! . You have put some reasoning , thoughts and accepted the downside of that decision and hence you are taking that risk !

Taking risk is not a bad thing at all. It’s the only thing which can help you grow at exponential rate. Those who don’t take risks, just die a simple life most of the times. The best things in the life are on the other end of the Risk , its on the opposite side of it. So take risks, but always make sure they are calculated one ! . Over the long term, one an average, you will do great. Its proven already, I am just reminding you!.

5. Rule of Investing

“Do not put all your eggs in one basket”

Warren Buffet is not a very big fan of diversifying. All the money he has today, comes from stocks, but there is one simple rule he has followed – “Put all your eggs in one basket, if you know you are an expert of that basket and closely keep an eye on it”.

Most of us are not like Warren Buffet! . So lets not copy him. What if you have put most of your money in one single asset class or a property or a particular branch of a bank? or just a single stock. Things can go wrong, and when it goes wrong, you will cry out loud, but no will will be able to help. You will be helpless and will regret like anything.

As a best practice make sure that your wealth is not in a single place. Remember that portfolio diversification is mainly a tool of minimizing risk, not for maximizing returns, so don’t ask a stupid question like – “Will diversifying my money to different places increase my returns?” – The answer is “It might… or it might not!/. But properly done, it will surely minimize the risk of losing your wealth in future.” .

6. Rule of Expectation

“Control your expectations, and control your happiness – they are same thing”

One very dedicated reader of this blog – Pattu, who teaches at IIT Chennai, told me once that he does not expect equity to give him more than 8% of returns in long term and he always invests his money in equity, assuming that he will get 8% or better in long run. Anything more than that would be a bonus for him. I am sure that he must be happy all his life and will never be disappointed with equity returns.

In financial life, we expect agents to work in our favor, we expect financial products to give us amazing returns, we expect financial planners to charge less, but give an awesome experience (Like we give to our paid clients) , we expect life insurance companies to pay our family, even if we make some mistake while disclosing some important information, we expect our credit card to  forget the penalty for in-case we don’t pay on time, we expect government to decrease the tax rates.

If you look, we are an “expecting” machine in our life. I can say from my tiny experience of life till date, happiness and expectations are just the two different words for the same thing. If you want to get in control of your happiness level, just control your expectations in life. Stop the expectations from others, better control yourself and your expectations, because thats all you can control. not others.

Practice these 6 rules in your financial life

If you can master these 6 rules in your financial life, your quality of life will improve. Each decision of yours should originate out of these 6 piller rules.

What do you say? Which rule did you like the most? Share it with us in comments section…

Open PPF account in ICICI Bank – Few Points you can’t miss !

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

Do you want to open PPF account in ICICI Bank ? Yes It’s possible now. Few months back, ICICI started the facility of PPF account. The way it was advertised was “Online PPF” , but it mainly meant that you can deposit and maintain your account online. While you can also apply for the PPF account online, still you need to provide them the documents physically. In this article we will look at how to open Public Provident Fund account in ICICI Bank.

Open PPF account in ICICI Bank

Can you open PPF account in any ICICI Branch ?

No , you can not open PPF account in any ICICI Branch . For each city, there are special designated branches for opening PPF account. You will have to open the PPF account there, here is the list of those designated braches . Note that you need to have a ICICI Bank account before you open the PPF account in ICICI, however the account can be in any branch of ICICI .

Documents required for opening the PPF account in ICICI Bank ?

Case 1 : For customers who have a relationship with ICICI Bank that is < 5 years.

  • Form A
  • Passport size photograph
  • Copy of PAN card

Case 2 : For customers who have a relationship with ICICI Bank that is > 5 years

  • Form A
  • Passport size photograph
  • Copy of PAN card
  • Residence proof – Passport/ Electricity Bill

In case 2 , the additional Residence Proof must be required mostly because if the customer is quite old, his address must have got changed. Note that if you do not have a ICICI Bank account already, you will have to first open an account , in which case you will fall into case 1

How to transfer your existing PPF account to ICICI Bank account ?

As per the PPF scheme of the Government, subscribers can transfer their PPF account from one authorised bank or Post office to another (Check detailed article on how to transfer a PPF account from Post Office to SBI bank) . In such a case, the PPF account will be considered as a continuing account. To enable customers to transfer their existing PPF accounts to ICICI Bank, the following process must be followed.

  • The customer approaches the bank or the Post office where his current PPF account is held and makes an application for transfer of PPF account to ICICI Bank’s branch.
  • Once the application is processed, the existing bank/Post office arrange to send the original documents such as a certified copy of the account, the account opening application, nomination form, specimen signature etc. to ICICI Bank branch address provided by the customer, along with a cheque/DD for the outstanding balance in the PPF account.

Once transfer in documents are received at ICICI Bank branch, customers are required to submit fresh PPF account opening form (Form A) and Nomination form (Form E/ Form F in case of change of nomination), along with their original passbook . Also customer is required to submit a fresh set of KYC documents.

You will not get PPF passbook in ICICI bank by default

This is something interesting I found which was getting discussed on our jagoinvestor forum . Looks like by default ICICI bank does not provide a PPF passbook when you open it. If you really need it, you will have to give a written request and only after its processed it will be given. Under its PPF terms and conditions its mentioned that

 3.3. Passbook shall not be made available to the Customer/s for PPF Account/s which are applied for and operated through ICICI Bank Internet Banking Services. However, the Customer shall be able to view his/her transactions through his/her statement of accounts available online on the Website. In the event, i Customer wishes to have a passbook for the PPF Account applied for through ICICI Bank Internet Banking Services, he/she shall be required to put in a written request for the same at the designated base branch where PPF Account is/has been opened as per ICICI Bank’s policy / process/Primary Terms.

However, if you mostly do all the transactions online, the Passbook point is not that big thing to reject the idea of opening PPF account in ICICI bank.

Conclusion

PPF account was always opened at SBI bank or Post Office by maximum people and ICICI bank is the new player in this field. Only time will tell about their services and how they handle this PPF service. However overall for netsavvy investors who already have a ICICI bank account, seems like its a good option and which can be acted upon faster. Now you need to take your decision. Let us know if you will open a PPF account in ICICI bank or not ?