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Non-Tech : ICICI Ltd - (Nyse: IC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mohan Marette who wrote (239)	2/24/2000 8:30:00 PM
From: Mohan Marette	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 494

ICICI WebTrade pushes online e-broking aggressively Anurag Joshi MUMBAI, FEBRUARY 24: ICICI WebTrade, the Internet broking arm of ICICI has pulled out all the stops for making its e-broking Website icicidirect.com a forceful alternative to conventional brokerages. The Website which opened for business on Tuesday has reportedly met with an overwhelming response from investors from across the country. *"The response to icicidirect.com* has been beyond all our expectations," ICICI WebTrade CEO Madhabi Puri Buch said. She, however, did not disclose the number of investors who have till now applied to join the Website. The company will be employing additional servers for enabling its Internet platform to meet the heavy rush for account opening to the Website. In a related move, the Web trading company is aggressively wooing equity sub-brokers to open e-Invest accounts with its website. "Presently, brokers suffer from the limitation of processing a restricted number of clients daily. This is on account of their back-offices being able to handle only a limited number of transactions on a day-to-day basis for reconciliation with banks and depository participants (DPs)," Puri Buch said, adding: "icicidirect.com is not hindered by this limitation as it will be able to manage any number of transactions during the day". "Usually, market orders are routed by sub-brokers to stockbrokers for executing trades. During any bullish session, there is a trend of all pivotal scrips hitting the circuit within a short period from the start of trading. In the process, most orders placed by sub-brokers mostly on behalf of small investors do not get executed. Though, icicidirect.com does not recognise sub-brokers, we have made them an offer to open e-Invest accounts with the Website. The site will ensure that all the orders keyed in by them on behalf of investors are executed," Puri Buch said. ICICI WebTrade has tied up with the National Stock Exchange (NSE) for online trading on the exchange. "Online settlement is based on our proprietary system while clearing will be on NSE," the ICICIWebTrade chief said.According to Puri Buch, the ability of the broking platform to undertake settlement of trades is possible on account of integration of banking and DP facilities. Investors joining icicidirect.com will be required to open an e-invest account with it. The e-Invest account is a 3-in-1 account combining the savings account (to be opened with ICICI Bank) and demat account with ICICI** and a the broking account. Other brokerages are also venturing into Web trading, but they are not able to provide banking and demat facilities under the same roof. On the other hand, the mandatory opening of demat account ensures that investors receive delivery only in paperless form, with the company debiting or crediting the investor's ICICI Bank account. In this regard, the investor will be required to grant ICICI WebTrade a power of attorney for completing the transactions. Live trading on the Website will start in early March, when the company is able to receive the remaining approvals from NSE. ICICIWebTrade has initiated talks with the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) for enabling investors to trade on the exchange's platform. This is, however, constrained on account of lack of an interface with the bourse. -Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.