This name conjures the image of a ‘propah’ British bank but, in India, it has followed a strategy of aggressively pushing subprime personal loans and credit cards through pesky but persistent agents. That may be a good business strategy, but Barclays had a lot to learn about doing business in India. An RBI executive director succumbed to an agent’s pester power and filled up a credit card...

The second MoneyLIFE workshop in Mumbai (5 April 2008) on ‘Making a Will’ and ‘Reverse Mortgage’ was, indeed, enlightening and engrossing for the full-house audience. Thank you, MoneyLIFE. There was another item, unrelated to the event, but inserted in the handout folder. It was a sticker for the No Honking campaign by the Mumbai Police. Since MoneyLIFE’s readership comprises a wide section of...

I am sorry to report that UTI Mutual Fund has failed to declare dividend for its Master Plus and Software Funds after December 2006 and Master Value Fund after March 2006. Can you please take up the matter with UTI on behalf of the general public? I await your kind and positive feedback.
HM Nagdev, 104/114 P D’Mello Road, Mumbai 400 009

We wrote to UTI MF for its feedback and received this...