Falling out

Helios & Matheson (H&M), which remains locked in litigation and arbitration with Rajeew Sawhney, over its alleged purchase of vMoksha, had gone ahead and made several other global acquisitions. One of these was the Nasdaq-listed TACT — a company once coveted by Dinesh Dalmia of DSQ Software. TACT was renamed Helios & Matheson North America (HMNA) and was distributor for Vegasoft of Helsinki. Now Vegasoft’s website has posted an announcement to the effect that its distributor agreement with Helios & Matheson has been terminated and from May 11 , 2007, customers will have to write to or approach Vegasoft directly for support, upgrades and product keys. New maintenance agreements will also be signed directly with Vegasoft when existing ones expire.

Band-One

Cijo Paul, a mutual fund distributor at Ernakulam, had an urgent need to issue a cheque to someone and decided to deposit cash to ensure a balance. He has an HDFC Bank account since 2000 that promises anywhere banking. But a branch at Aluva refused to accept his cash, saying he was classified as a “Band-1” customer and was not allowed to deposit cash anywhere but at the branch where he has his account. We asked HDFC Bank about the concept of “Band-1” customers. It said, those customers who make frequent cash deposits or are extremely irregular in using their account are classified as Band-1 customers. This is part of the Bank’s “Know your customer” policy and their cash deposits have to be at the home branch to ensure proper identification. Paul, however, says that he is an active user of his account — at least 15-20 transactions every month — and rarely deposits cash. His income is entirely by cheque and comes from various mutual funds, including HDFC. His PAN number is also entered in the bank records. All he does is to transfer all surpluses in his savings account to fixed deposits in order to earn better interest. On the face of it, Paul is clearly not a Band-1 customer, but his experience tells us that it is yet another banking practice for customers to worry about. Worse, it is being applied without informing the customer, despite its potential to negate the very concept of anywhere banking.