My experience with South Indian Bank

South Indian Bank - Experience Next Generation Banking - This is the caption of the bank. Let us see how much the bank meets this at this point of time (19-Nov-2010)

+ves:
1. Interest rates offered are high compared to other private/nationalized banks.
2. Monthly e-statements on your registered mail id.
3. Looks like ECS facility is available.

Things to improve:
1. You do any cash transactions at the branch and the same cannot be updated in your passbook on the same day. You have to wait till the next day to get it updated.
2. You open an account/FD today and you get your passbook after 1 or 2 days. You get your FD advice after 1-2 days. You get your ATM card and pin after almost 15 days.
3. Check book will be issued after 1 month. Same with internet banking.
4. One more thing about internet banking that the bank employees told me is that you cannot do a funds transfer from the bank. You have to call them up and they will do it on your behalf. Also you have to visit the branch to open a FD/RD etc.; you cant do it from your internet banking login.
5. You cant change the pin of your debit card as well !!!!!!!!!!!!!
6. Silver privilege account will be given for an account with a min balance of 5000. But seeing the benefits provided, atleast as of now, I dont think its worth.
7. They want a check (cheque) based transaction for opening a FD/RD if you want them to deduct the amount from your SB account.
8. For opening a RD the min tenure in most of the banks is 6 months whereas its a year in SIB.
9. The debit card provided is a mastercard. It doesnt have a cvv number. I am not sure of whether this is a +ve thing or not.


Conclusion:
Interest rates are comparatively better for tenure of more than 180 days. Otherwise its inline with other banks like HDFC. So, if you want to do a FD for more than 180 days then you can knock on SIB's doors. Or else if this is the bank nearer to your house/work place then you can go for it. Otherwise I dont see any specific driving reason to open an account with this bank.

Disclaimer: This is a personal opinion and I hope no one gets offended.

Stock Selection

Cheap Stocks: companies with PE multiple of less than 20. Try to restrict list to only those stocks whose earnings (as measured by earnings per share) has grown by at least 20 per cent in both of the last two financial years

Example:

Low Beta Stocks Beta is a statistical measure that shows how sensitive a stock is to market moves. For example,if Sensex moves by 25 per cent, a stock's beta number suggests whether the stock's returns are expected to be more than this or less. The beta value for an index itself is taken as one. Stocks can have beta values, which can be above one, less than one or equal to one. A stock with a beta of more than one is expected to rise more than the market and also fall more than market. Similarly, a low-beta fund will rise less than the market on the way up and lose less on the way down. This means that high beta stocks are meant for aggressive investors who want to beat the market on the upside, but do not mind taking the risk of higher losses if the markets fall. On the other hand, for conservative investors who want higher insulation from losses, a stock with a beta of less than one is a better option.

Contrarian Bets? The idea behind the contrarian strategy is to buy into the out-of favour stocks, i.e., the stocks which have few takers at the moment, and hold them till the time they catch the fancy of the markets again and bring in handsome gains. Aim to search for such out-of favor stocks which are available quite cheap, but seem to have a reasonably strong financial position. Therefore, as and when the markets rediscover their potential, they might be in for a significant capital appreciation. The first filter is that they should have a price-earning multiple of not more than 12, which suggests that the markets does not seem to be very optimistic about them at the moment. But a high current ratio (of 2 times or higher), coupled with negligible debt on the balance sheet points towards a potentially strong financial condition. We can add another criterion that the stock should have a decent dividend yield (of at least 2.5 per cent) to ensure that at least it yields some dividend income till the time it brings in the capital appreciation.