Tale of a Credit Card, E-Business and Indian Postal System
As usual, this is one of those personal posts which I do from time to time on this blog. As there is election just round the corner, there is hyper activity in the field of politics and business has taken a back seat. The effect of politics is such in India that, even media – all types at that are focusing on it, rather than highlight the economic problems that is engulfing us slowly but surely.
I can think of only one recent business news that caught my attention and that is Forbe’s latest list of shamelessly rich people though they have not been left untouched by the global market crash. Bill Gates returns as numero uno richest persona despite loosing $18 billion during last year. His buddy Warren Buffet lost $25 billion, but it is still enough for him to occupy number two position. India’s Anil Ambani and last year’s 6th richest man lost a whopping $32 billion during last 12 months and slipped out of top 10. The saving grace for India is Laxmi Mittal at number 8 and Mukesh Ambani at number 7.
Over-all, hundreds of people lost their billionaire tag from last year’s list and only few joined the list this year which is not very surprising. Interesting Communist ruled China has over taken India as home to most numbers of billionaires in Asia.
Now lets proceed to the main story.
Visa Credit Card
Billionaires or millionaires, India is a land of great diversity – literally in everything. Even last year, there was EDC machine to process payment by credit cards in my entire state (It now has two merchant establishments accepting payment by credit cards in our state capital 185 kms away from where I live). So there were no banks or agencies that issued them. Now there is one bank Union Bank of India) which is issuing the plastic cards to clients.
Due to my involvement in the web and being a webmaster for sometime now, I have been having great difficulty in paying for my domains, hosting and other services that I need to avail regularly. So I can say easily that, the non-availability of a credit card was hampering my online business and more than anybody else in my state, I felt the absence of plastic money to great extent.
When the bank opened a branch in our big village (with more than 100,000 population), I took the first opportunity to open an account with them in the first week of December, 2008 and immediately applied for the card. One fine day at the end of January, someone called me from Mumbai to verify information and documents that I put with my application form. I was hoping to receive it by 3rd week of February. But it never came. Finally, today I received my long cherished VISA credit card. :p
After carefully checking the envelop, I discovered that the card was issued on 25th February and posted via EMS Speed Post service offered my Indian Postal Department on 28th February. Today is 13th March. So it took 13 days to reach my address from Mumbai by Speed Post! Ideally, it is supposed to take maximum of 72 hours from any place in India to any corner of the country. So much so is for the service of an important public service department of India. I am jut wondering how long would it have taken had it been posted via normal post.
This is not an isolated case if you are wondering. One of my savings policies has Read the rest of this entry »