Saturday, July 2, 2016

Times Group owner Vineet Jain's Rs 90-cr+ remuneration; CEO Raj Jain's pay packet n more

Times Group owner Vineet Jain's Rs 90-cr+ remuneration; CEO Raj Jain's pay packet n more

Disclaimer: The data in this blog post is for 'educational' and 'informative' purposes only. The author is not responsible for you being depressed when you hear others getting crores while you get peanuts!

It 'pays' to be the first family of Indian media. One gets to decide if fellow countrymen and women should see close-ups of Deepika Padukone's cleavage, or whether 'India' 'today' can be spared of those well-paying but irritating jacket ads on the first page of the 'news'paper. Bennett Coleman And Company Limited, BCCL, is the firm that publishes The Times of India, The Economic Times, Navbharat Times, Maharashtra Times and Mumbai Mirror. As you can guess, it prints tonnes of newsprint and makes a hell lot of money. How much? Read on.

Vital stats

In FY15 (April 2014 to March 2015), BCCL on a standalone basis raked in Rs 1186.24 crore as net profit. This was a nice 44 per cent jump from FY14 when BCCL had logged in a bottom-line of Rs 821.16 crore. Profits are on an upswing given that average net profits of the company for the last three financial years was Rs. 1049.03 crore. Profits are toeing topline rise. Total turnover in FY15 stood at Rs 6,368.70 crore, up 14.5% from Rs 5560.59 crore in FY14. Pretty impressive! (Check back by October/November 2016 to find what happened in FY16)

Apart from popular print business, BCCL has key TV assets like TIMES NOW, ET NOW, Zoom and Romedy Now channels. Then there is Times Music. Plus, there are other stuff like Bennett Institute of Higher Education, Times Jobs Limited, Magic Bricks Reality Services, Times Internet, ENIL, Brand Equity Treaties, Mirchi Movies etc. TIMES NOW has now been brought under the fold of BCCL. Earlier, TIMES NOW was part of Times Global Broadcasting Co.

Money 'maliks'

Enough blah, blah. Let's get to the interesting part of salaries.

Fifty something BCCL Managing Director Vineet Jain, who individually owns 1642248 shares in BCCL (apart from his family holding through entities), 'took' home Rs 909,171,581.33 or Rs 90 crore plus as remuneration. Vineet and brother Samir are the sons of Times Group super boss, Indu Jain

In 2014, he paid himself one of the biggest salaries in Corporate India history. He paid himself an eye-popping Rs 463,767,952 (Rs 46.37 crore) as remuneration in that year! Vineet is known to be friends with all the big shots in India, including politicians, ministers, actors, cricketers and diplomats. As some say, he can pull the right string almost everywhere with alacrity.

Getting Rs 90.9 crore as remuneration in FY15 is pure awesome! Its a lot of money, make no mistake. That's like my earnings, the annual income of my 100 neighbors and yes, add my entire locality as well!

Spiritually inclined Samir Jain, who is known to spend more time at Hardwar than in business, as Vice Chairman & Managing Director got Rs 337,678,122.33 or Rs 33.7 crore. So, Samir Jain theoretically earned one-third of his younger brother. In FY14, BCCL had clocked about 821 crore in net profits. Vineet Jain, by that measure, all by himself in that year got about 5.5 per cent of the company's bottom line. In FY15, he got paid Rs 90.92 crore or nearly 8 per cent of the year's bottom-line. This is incredible!



With his huuuuuuuuge salary, Vineet beats the even the most well-paid CEOs in the country. For instance, Kalanithi Maran and Kavery Kalanithi of Sun TV Network are among the highest paid CEOs among 'listed firms' in 2014-15 with annual packages of Rs 61.27 crore (Rs 612.7 million) and Rs 61.26 crore (Rs 612.6 million), respectively. They were followed by Pawan Kant Munjal, Hero MotoCorp boss at the third position with a package of Rs 44.62 crore. Kumar Mangalam Birla, chairman Aditya Birla Group was ranked fourth with a salary package of Rs 44.56 crore. Interestingly, India’s richest businessman, Mukesh Ambani is ranked at 33 with a salary of Rs 15 crore annually. Mukesh-ji has capped his annual salary, but continues to rake in big cash through dividends of course (winks).

BCCL VC and MD Samir Jain was paid Rs 15.17 crore in FY'13 against Rs 14.82 crore in FY12, He seems to be doing the 'dharma' bit while brother Vineet does the 'dhanda' part. Vineet Jain got remuneration of Rs 14.90 crore in FY'13 compared to Rs 14.57 crore in FY'12. In just three years, Vineet has grown his salary by six-fold - from Rs 14.5 crore to Rs 90 crore and counting.

Lastly, matriarch Indu Jain, BCCL Chairman, got just Rs 16.08 crore as remuneration for FY15. She is one the women billionaires on the elite Forbes list and is reportedly an Osho devotee. As you know, she is also a Padma awardee.



If you include the dividends that Vineet and the owners got, the remuneration kitty would become bigger. Here's how. The unlisted BCCL is wholly controlled by the Sahu Jain family.  BCCL's balance sheet shows Rs 40.8 crore worth dividends were 'paid' out between April 2014 to March 2015. That's like 100% jump over Rs 20.14 crore worth dividends paid in FY14. The distribution will be in proportion to the number of equity shares held by the shareholders. Not individuals, but BCCL is mostly controlled by corporate bodies, who own 98.97% of the biggest media company. This entities, which may be directly/indirectly controlled by Jains, include Sanmati Properties, Bharat Nidhi, PNB Finance & Industries, Camac Commercial, Arth Udyog, Jacaranda Corporate Services, TM Investments and Ashoka Viniyoga.

Satyan Gajwani, son in law of the Jain family, earned Rs 2.32 crore. Satyan played a role in bringing Vice Media of US to India. Vice will use all Times Group assets including Times NOW (its flagship news channel) to build the brand here. You would have noticed an entity called Times Global Partners (TGP) brokered deals in India including BCCL partnerships with marquee global brands such as Huffington Post, Ad Age and Business Insider.

Naukar, chakars

Don't be offended with the sub-head. There are Rs 100-crore nearing MD cum owners... and the rest of this gigantic media group. Just how much were the employees paid in FY15? Here's the list.


CEO

Former BCCL CEO Ravindra Dhariwal got Rs 18.78 crore in FY15. Dhariwal in 2015 joined TPG as senior advisor after retiring from BCCL. He was replaced by former Wal-Mart executive Raj Jain. In picking Jain, BCCL apparently passed up two high-profile internal candidates—COO Shrijeet Mishra and President (Response) Arunabh Das Sharma (has now quit), and that caused some internal discomfort. People say Mishra was tipped to succeed Dhariwal but the company eventually looked outside.

Aligarh-born Raj Jain has got him a good deal at BCCL. His contract is till March 2020.

Fixed salary for FY16 will be Rs 4.45 crore. Target variable pay for FY16 would be Rs 1 crore. So, he could earn Rs 5.45 crore from just fixed salary and TVP. In FY17, he could earn Rs 5.86 crore (fixed salary - Rs 4.81 crore plus TVP - Rs 1.05 crore). Additionally, his total annual cash pay-out will be maximum Rs 6 crore for FY16 and FY17. Perks include Rs 64-lakh worth Mercedes Benz ML 250, club facility and leave encashment.



Journos

Former ABP hand Jaideep Bose, the all-important Editorial Director at BCCL, received Rs 2.47 crore.

Rahul Joshi, another Editorial Director who has now joined as CEO News of Network 18, got Rs 1.82 crore.

R Sridharan, Managing Editor, received Rs 1.3 crore. Sridharan has since then quit. Arnab Goswami took over charge of ET NOW after Sridharan left. This happened because another key ET NOW man Shailendra Swaroop Bhatnagar, Chief Editor-Markets & Research, also had quit in July 2015. In FY15, Shailendra received Rs 1.05 crore. He is now a passive investor.

Former NDTV hand, Nikunj Dalmia, ‎who is stocks editor at Times Global - ‎ET NOW, earned Rs 1.15 crore.

Former HT hand Priya Gupta, Senior Vice President at BCCL and Managing Editor of Bombay Times marketing supplement, bagged Rs 86.89 lakh in FY15. She has now joined T-Series as President, Films.

Nabeel Mohideen, National Head-Integrated Desk at The Economic Times, earned Rs 86.75 lakh.

Saubhik Chakrabarti, earlier Assistant Executive Editor and now Deputy Executive Editor at ET, earned Rs 80.4 lakh.

Former Thomson Reuters hand, Santosh Ramachandra Menon, Assistant Executive Editor, received Rs 79.83 lakh. He has left Times Group after serving less than a year as Deputy Executive Editor of The Economic Times. Menon has been hired by Network 18 group as Chief Content Officer for the digital businesses.

Bodhisatva Ganguli, Deputy Executive Editor in FY15, got Rs 78.23 lakh. After Rahul Joshi left, 'Bodhi' became the Executive Editor of The Economic Times and was dragged into the 'sharing' controversy. Times Group took the bold step of linking the target variable pay (TVP) of their journalists and content developer’s salaries with the amount of 'social shares' they are performing.

Meenal Baghel, Editor of Mumbai Mirror, got Rs 67.80 lakh.

Javed Sayed, earlier Associate Editor and now Deputy Executive Editor, The Economic Times, got Rs 65.44 lakh.

Suman Chattopadhyay, Editor of Times Group's Bengali newspaper Ei Samay, earned Rs 63.02 lakh in FY15. He joined ToI Group after failing miserably as a print entrepreneur (Ekdin, a Bengali daily, and Disha, a Bengali magazine).  While he sold Disha to one of  a chit fund group, he reportedly still owns Ekdin.

Brian V Carvalho, Editor - ET Magazine, made Rs 62.26 lakh.

Diwakar, Assistant Executive Editor, got Rs 61.80 lakh. Last we heard, Diwakar was promoted to the post of executive editor. Diwakar was Political Editor at ET before he moved to TOI as Political Editor and Chief of the National Bureau.

Subha Chatterjee, Editor & National Head - Special Projects, got Rs 61.62 lakh. Like many others, he has quit and joined Network 18 group where Subha is Group Editor, Special Projects.

Derick B. Dsa, earlier Assistant Executive Editor, earned Rs 60.18 lakh. He runs Mumbai, and oversees Pune, Nagpur, Goa and Madhya Pradesh ToI while serving as national resource person to template Times City in other editions.

Sugata Ghosh, Chief Editor - News who is a big shot at ET, got Rs 60.05 lakh.



Brand guys 

S. Sivakumar, CEO - Brand Capital, got Rs 5.93 crore. Brand Capital engages with entrepreneurs to provide funding for long-term advertisement solutions.

Former Enam Securities hand Shrenik M Khasgiwala, now Director - Brand Capital, got Rs 1.52 crore.

Sandeep Dahiya, Director - Brand Extension at BCCL, earned Rs 1.51 crore. The group has begun brand extensions with the Femina under which the magazine has partnered with Shoppers Stop to launch Femina Flaunt, a brand of apparel, shoes, bags and accessories. BCCL also plans to get into the men's category and will look to extend its lifestyle and leisure supplement brand ET Panache for the same. Another brand extension seen is the magazine Good Homes, which will be launching products in the home category.

Neeti Chopra, Brand Director - ET, earned Rs 1.43 crore.

Puneet Suri, Director - Brand Capital, got Rs 1.27 crore.

Rajesh Sharma, Director BCCL & National Head - SpringBoard Ventures, Brand Capital, took Rs 1.09 crore in FY15. Spring Board is about funding asset light brands. Provogue Personal Care (Deodrants), Local Banya.com, Peri Peri and Biara (Lingerie), Lifespan (chain of specialised diabetes clinics), Swiss Eagle, Gio Collection, Giardano (affordable luxury) are some of the ventures funded and co-created by Spring Board.

Ramaswamy Gopalkrishnan, earlier VP and now Sr. VP of Brand Capital and National Head, Brand Estate at BCCL, earned Rs 91.80 lakh.

Munish Sabharwal, Vice President at Brand Capital and who earlier worked for IDBI Capital and JM Morgan Stanley, got Rs 87.04 lakh.



Visvanathan Sathappan, Director - Brand Capital, earned Rs 75.03 lakh.

Diwakar Dadoo, a VP who was Investments Lead & Head - Emerging Markets, Brand Capital, got Rs 74.35 lakh. Dadoo now co-heads Equitace Capital, the strategic Portfolio Management and Exit Monetisation arm of Brand Capital of The Times Group.

Malcolm G Raphael, Vice President and Business Head - Brandscope, earned Rs 65.52 lakh.

Anil Kumar, Vice President-Hyderabad, Regional Head - Andhra Pradesh and Kerala - Brand Capital, got remuneration of Rs 64.65 lakh that year.

Sriram Kilambi, Vice President - Brand Capital, earned Rs 62.64 lakh.

Vishal Jadhav, Vice President (Head-Equitace Capital), earned Rs 61.63 lakh.


Ad guys and girls

Arunabh Das Sharma, former President - Response & Executive Director, got Rs 14.43 crore. He quit BCCL in June 2016 after spending 5 years.

Shrijeet Mishra, COO & Executive Director, earned Rs 4.23 crore in FY15. Mishra hails from Odisha. He  is currently spearheading the Times Group's initiative to launch a 'world-class' university.

Joy Chakraborthy, Director, took home Rs 2.86 crore. He was earlier CEO of TV TODAY NETWORK and also worked as Executive director - revenue & niche channels at
Zee Entertainment Enterprise Ltd.

Nandan Srinath, Director - Response, earned Rs 1.92 crore. He currently leads revenue responsibility for The Economic Times.

Sameer Sainani, Director - Response, earned Rs 1.54 crore. He was earlier Chief Revenue Officer at Radio Mirchi.

Ranjeet Kate, earlier Director (Response) and now board member of WorldWide Media (publishes Femina, Filmfare etc.) and also CEO of Metropolitan Media (which publishes Vijay Karnataka newspaper), received Rs 1.28 crore.

Indira Diesh, Vice President of Times Response, got Rs 90.89 lakh.



Rasesh Pushpvadan Gandhi, earlier AVP and now Vice President - Response, took home Rs 89.01 lakh in FY15.

Teena Singh, another Vice-President, got Rs 79.86 lakh. Teena has since then moved on, ending 31-year long career with BCCL, and joined as Consultant - Marketing, Media Strategy and Sales at Teamwork Arts.

Jnan Prakash Dsouza, Vice President and National Vertical Head - Retail, Clothing & E-Commerce, received Rs 81.11 lakh.

Suchitra Sengupta, AVP and now VP, took home Rs 71.10 lakh. She has independent profit centre responsibilities with particular focus on sales team leadership, cost control, institutional selling.

Punit Jain, Sr VP, got Rs 69.77 lakh. The once brand manager of NBT, Punit is the guy who heads entire sales operations of The Times Group for North India, managing targets and achievements, new launches, team building and brand development.

Devasree Chadha, Associate Vice President - Response (who is Metro head of Kolkata and NE states) earned Rs 68.23 lakh.

Times Internet senior executive Nafisa Thingna, whose last job was in Mid-Day, got Rs 84.09 lakh. Former ABP hand, Gautam Sen, an Associate Vice President who possibly looks after ‘Govt Business’, got Rs 64.19 lakh.

Ninan Thariyan, VP, got Rs 61.58 lakh. He is responsible for over Rs 300 crore of advertising revenue from TN region for Bennett, Coleman & Company Limited, brand owners of publication such as the Times of India & The Economic Times.


Commercial and ops guys

Former GSK Beecham hand Mohit Jain, Executive President - Supply Chain at BCCL, got Rs
2.54 crore.

Former HUL executive, Thiyagarajan Kumar, Director - MAS or Management Assurance Services at BCCL, earned Rs 1.44 crore.

Sidhant Khosla, who earlier worked with Cargil India, as Director (Corporate
Group) at BCCL earned Rs 1.41 crore.

Shyam Shanker, Director - Business and Commercial, earned Rs 1.32 crore. He is essentially a Commodity Buyer with International specialisation in bulk trading & logistics.

Sachin Gupta, formerly Chief Information Officer at BCCL, earned Rs 1.26 crore. From Feb-2016, Sachin joined Havells India Ltd as Senior Vice President & Group CIO.

Sanjay Singh, Director - Modernization at BCCL, earned Rs 1.10 crore.

Meeta Sachdev, Vice President who has been promoted to Sr. VP rank, earned Rs 81.85 lakh. She looks after Strategy and Pricing, Bennett Coleman and Co. Ltd. ( Times Group).

Sunil Uppal , Vice President (IT) at BCCL, earned Rs 71.30 lakh.

V S Sundaram, Vice President - Projects, was richer by Rs 70.38 lakh. He has overseen business process re-engineering and change management for ERP etc.

L V M Kishore, Associate Vice President, received Rs 66.94 lakh. He has expertise in supply chain, procurement, logistics.

Sankalp Shrivastava, Assistant Vice President, earned Rs 60.97 lakh. He is the chief buyer of 2 major capex verticals - Production Machinery & IT, and Telecom & Software at BCCL.


HR

Ashok Raparia, Director - Human Resources, made Rs 1.48 crore. He is a name most people who have worked in ToI are aware of. Its his signature at the end of their job appointment letter, mostly.

Among BCCL HR executives, Sidhartha Ganguly, VP, got Rs 74.51 lakh.

Sankha Bhowmick, Vice President - HR, earned Rs 70.20 lakh.



Others

Kotak Mahindra Capital i-banking hand Sanjeev Ramesh Shah, Executive President - Mergers and Acquisitions of BCCL, got Rs 2.52 crore.

Money-man R.S. Narayan, formerly Chief Financial Officer at BCCL, himself got remuneration worth Rs 2.24 crore in FY15. Narayan is now  Chief of Staff at Viacom 18. He is now responsible for mergers and acquisition, internal audit, internal control as well as the admin function while continuing work on improving group level governance.

Sanjeev Vohra, Executive President - Audiences, got Rs 1.78 crore.

Rahul Kansal, Executive President who looks after brand and business strategy for TOI, Mirrors and the company's language brands, earned Rs 1.68 crore.

Sameer Soni, Chief Operating Officer - Event Business (which organises TOIFA for instance), earned Rs 1.61 crore. We read some reports saying he is also Director - International Business at Times Group.

Former Company Secretary of UTV Software Communications, Mohammed Sajid Ali, Vice President - Legal at BCCL, earned Rs 1.15 crore.

Rajesh Kunnath, Director - Corporate, earned Rs 1.10 crore. He has overall responsibility for the Family Office of BCCL promoters.

Kaushal Dalal, Director - Mergers and Acquisition, earned Rs 1.04 crore package.

Former Motorola India hand, Mandar Thakur, who dons the hat of CEO - Music Business at BCCL, made Rs 94.20 lakh.

Kaustuv Chatterjee, Vice President-Languages and now promoted to Sr. VP rank, took home Rs 86.28 lakh. He is Brand and P&L head for Bennett Language brands and leads a team of over 650.

Rakesh Dhamani, Vice President (Finance), was paid Rs 84.17 lakh.

Ashok Sen, Associate Vice President, got Rs 82.09 lakh. He was earlier with Sahujain Services. Sen has an interesting profile. He heads the Central / State Governments / Public Sector / Boards and Corporations and Tenders/Public Notices Vertical on a national scale. Also, he continues to be the 'Art Curator' for The Times of India Group.

Shashank P Chavan, Deputy Director, got Rs 79.93 lakh. Another VP, C.G.Varughese got Rs 89.61 lakh.

Rachna Burman, Senior Vice President - Corporate who claims expertise in Operations, Policy & Regulatory issues for the media industry, took home Rs 75.61 lakh.

Kausik Nath, ‎Vice President & Company Secretary at BCCL, earned Rs 70.50 lakh.

Pradeep Gnana Nerayanuri, former Vice President (Learning, OD & Talent Management, Corporate Human Resources) at BCCL, got Rs 73.35 lakh. He left in April 2016 and is an independent leadership coach.

M R Vasudevan, Deputy Director (technical) of Times Internet, got Rs 69.72 lakh.

Rajarshi Chakrabarti, Vice President (legal), earned Rs 68.96 lakh.

Sanjay Goyal, Vice President - Times Internet, got Rs 66.50 lakh.

Ashish Bhushan, former Assistant Vice President, got Rs 65.59 lakh. Bhushan, part of the team that established Times Red Cell, has now floated Chapter 3 --- an Experience Management Company that works with corporate organisations, brands, educational institutions, media companies and NGOs to design and execute intellectual properties and brand experiences.

Subramanian. S., Assistant Vice President, got Rs 64.78 lakh.

Sanjiv Kaura, CEO-Corp Social Responsibility, earned Rs 61.75 lakh. Coming to CSR, BCCL didnt spend much. While total amount to be spent for the financial year FY15 was Rs. 20.98 crore (2% of avg net profits for last 3 fiscals), it spent only Rs 5.5 crore!

Neeta Asnani, Assistant Vice President, got Rs 61.47 lakh.

Till, the next time.

Image attribution: Sourced from Internet platforms like Google Images, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Friday, July 1, 2016

How do SMEs gain from digital bank offering from HDFC Bank

If you run a SME (Small and Medium Enterprise), you know banking is a full fledged headache. SME owners have to try and grow faster, compete with bigger and deep pocketed rivals and also at the same time diligently grow through accounts, keep track of transactions, ask for more credit. The list goes on.

Being an SME, doing banking can be a stressful job. That's why digital offerings are a boon straight from heaven. The country's most valuable lender, HDFC Bank has launched India’s 1st first full-fledged digital banking service for small-and medium enterprises (SME).

HDFC Bank maintains that this product is not a market centric offering but a web enabled one. Customers can log in through their enet ID\password and gain access to a host of services. At a single click a customers can access all information on existing loans; apply for letters of credit\bank guarantees; submit bank statements, financials, insurance policies; and get offers as well as alerts of important dates.

Its different

What this allows is SME clients to access a complete suite of services instantly and round-the-clock on the device of their choice, be it a desktop, laptop, tablet or mobile. SME owners and top executives are always on the go. Meeting people, exploring opportunities, looking after goods that are stuck or delayed. Yet, SME companies have a strong hierarchy. Banking transactions can get slowed when there are many people 'approving' them. In the physical world, this means sending physical copies of documents. Then making sure the bank has got them. Follow-ups. It can be quite time-taxing as well.

What HDFC Bank's digital SME bank facility does is remove the hassles to a large extent. So, you dont need to call relationship manager or visit a branch. Result: you save considerable time and effort.

The SME bank initiative in the second leg of the ‘Bank AapkiMutthi Mein’ campaign that was launched for tHDFC Bank’s retail customers in December 2014 at Varanasi. With this, HDFC Bank now brings the benefits of digitisation to its corporate clients, starting with SMEs.

Journalists at Mumbai interacting with HDFC Bank officials at SME digital solution launch


The importance of SMEs is well-known. 3.6 crore SME units contribute about 8 per cent to India’s GDP. If manufacturing has to grow and fast, SMEs need be helped. SME contribution to India’s manufacturing output is 45 per cent. They also earn a lot of forex since they account for 40 per cent of India’s exports.

What SMEs get

With digital SME banking, HDFC Bank is attempting to revolutionize banking just as ATMs, internet banking did. For existing clients, this will be a total Digital banking experience where the control of the Bank account resides in their hands.  Now, Digital will bring SME banking to same stature retail banking is in terms of extra convenience. HDFC Bank, like many others, offers Current Accounts, Merchant Services, Cash Management Services, Working Capital, Business Loans, Trade Finance Solutions and Export Services to SMEs. But, digital will change the game, probably forever.

Aseem Dhru, Group Head - Business Banking, HDFC Bank Ltd, says digital empowerment is a game changer for an SME. A business banking customer will be able to apply for working capital finance, access information, place requests and do multiple other transactions without having to contact a relationship manager. "This means that the turnaround time for many customer requests will come down to a few hours from a few days. What is more the customer is not constrained by banking hours and can access services through several platforms like a PC, Laptop, Tablet or a mobile," he added.

Aseem Dhru, Group Head - Business Banking, HDFC Bank explaining how mobile app will help SMEs get 'more banking from less'


So, imagine you are SME owner. Now, you get:

1)  One view of all your credit lines with the Bank and the asset outstanding. You can even know the maturity date of Letter of Credit, Bank Guarantees

2) A big relief. Pay and receive all your money without even using a cheque book. SMEs like business clients of HDFC Bank use ENet.

3) Get Letter of Credit, Bank Guarantee, Foreign currency outward remittances, Import bill under collection / LC done from your office

4) As many SME owners already know, documentation is a big headache. With Digital SME bank, All Important documents like Stock statements, Insurance, financials etc. can be uploaded with ease to the Bank for smooth continuation of credit facilities

5) HDFC Bank will also use analytics to send you offers which are relevant to the particular customer

6) SME clients will get Tickers and Alerts of renewal/expiry dates to facilitate SME’s in timely submissions.

What I really like about the service is the level of transparency. According to HDFC Bank, for each client initiated transaction request, a QR code is sent which can be saved and used to know the status of the request thus ensuring transparency.

7) Clients can ask for seasonal / additional limits for a sudden business requirement and based on the analytics, the money could be credited to their accounts almost instantly. If its actually instant, that will save a lot of cash problems for SMEs. Readers are requested to try this out and let me know if HDFC Bank walks the talk on the digital service delivery part.

Its clear that HDFC Bank like some smart lenders is wanting to automate and in a sense democratize banking. Resources can be used in a better way. With the Bank taking transactions online and relationships offline,relationship managers will continue to service the clients over and above this digital offering. This could be a transformative change in the SME customer experience.

Within a month, the Bank will extend the offering to new customers. They can apply online for loan facilities by uploading just three basic documents.The Bank will respond in about 24 hours with an in-principle decision, say HDFC Bank officials. Let me know how your experience was and what kind of problems, if any, you are encountering when dealing with HDFC Bank.

Till, the next time.