Banking on trouble

It was one woman against an international banking giant, but Suchitra Krishnamoorthi's long battle against HSBC for brazenly short-changing her is finally showing results. The matter pertains to an investment of Rs3.6 crore with the bank in 2006 — she'd been told she would get returns of 24 per cent but shockingly suffered huge losses on her capital instead. "Overall, I lost close to Rs2 crore.

The bank just threw its hands up and when I approached the EOW, even they did nothing," recounts Suchitra. On November 1, SEBI issued a showcause notice to the bank and termed their actions "deceitful" and "fraudulent" with regards to its handling of Suchitra's account. What's ironical is that the bank's country head happens to be an Indian woman of global repute, but even approaching Naina Lal Kidwai amounted to little. "A battery of officials got in touch instead asking me to leave the remaining money with them, saying they'd try their best to make good my losses.

Did they think I was crazy?" said Suchitra. Now SEBI has asked HSBC why it should not return the huge monies they earned by excessively churning her portfolio, simply to "earn more commissions" and could now also stop them from distributing any mutual fund products in future. "It's a big development and will bring hope to others who've faced the same kind of harassment," Suchitra told this diarist. Reminds us of the old adage, 'a stitch in time saves nine'.