Thursday, February 10, 2011

PPF accounts - ICICI's best kept secret

Update (1st July,2012) : 
If you have PPF account with ICICI, you can transfer money online to it from your ICICI savings account.

Copied verbatim from here.(since I have had the same experience and now hold a PPF a/c with ICICI)

I decided to open a PPF account. First, the venerable SBI closed on me (it was saturday after lunch). The post-office also shot me down (it's right across the street from the main bangalore SBI) although they didnt really give me a reason why. My PPF action item was not going down easy.

Now, at some point, I had read that ICICI was recently authorized to collect funds for opening a PPF account. A press release from ICICI stating that they are going to offer online access to PPF account from your savings account at ICICI. The ICICI website, perversely, makes no mention of this fact anywhere. You can search for PPF all day long at icicibank.com and you wont find a thing. The other scheme mentioned in the press release, some senior saving scheme, gets a page of its own so you're left wondering if the addition of the PPF in the release was a huge mistake by the Marketing Dept.

I figured i ought to give ICICI a shot. I had already heard 'no' twice and was getting used to rejection. i stepped into the main ICICI branch and, wonder of wonders, they do open a PPF for you if you ASK. Ten minutes and one submitted photograph later, I was given a PPF account number WITH online access from my savings account. The account would be activated 10 working days after the submission of the form. There, wasnt that simple?

Questions that I want to scream at the top of my lungs are (but didnt) are:

(A) Why does SBI require two photographs, compulsory witnesses for nomination AND an initial cash deposit? By contrast, ICICI wants one photograph and cash/cheque and no signatures when nominee is a major!

2. Why is ICICI not publicizing its PPF capabilities? Is one web page extra too much cost? I'm guessing, since opening a PPF at ICICI does not benefit ICICI in any substantial way, they'd rather not spend time or money on informing the public.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

As per my experience SBI is the best for PPF if you have internet banking.
SBI has lots of features which are missing in case of ICICI. In ICICI you can’t even generate meaning full statement online(It does not contain your name, address and a/c type). Even statement generated from ICICI branch does not mention a/c type. Moreover you can’t set a monthly option of online transfer in case of ICICI. Here is a complete comparison of features provided by ICICI PPF vs SBI PPF: http://curiouslogic.in/2014/02/how-sbi-ppf-is-far-better-than-icici-ppf/