The Forex Mini Account - The Best Way To Start Off Trading Forex On Low Capital- Part #1

A lot of people assume that forex trading will require a huge capital base. As a result, they would instantly decline to entertain any proposal to start trading in forex, preferring to remain with trading stocks and shares which is more affordable. This is simply not true, because in forex trading, you can start off with minimal capital when you utilise a forex mini account.
There are four main advantages of a Forex Mini Account.
1. Low Minimum account size
$300 will allow you to start a forex mini account. This is affordable for most people to start off with in forex trading. When you consider forex trading as a business, there are very few businesses costing only $300 as a startup capital offering lucrative prospects of earnings within a very short time.
2. High leverage
You can get leverage of 200:1 In the mini forex account, there is a small margin deposit required fixed at $50 for per lot traded. This amounts to a stunning leverage of 200 to 1. One of the key factors to accelerate profits is to use trading vehicles of high leverage, and a forex mini account certainly meets or fulfils the definition of high leverage.
3. One pip is equivalent to $1
Trading in pips allows the new forex trader to scale down his risk. With such a low denomination, the trader is able to deal with forex trading with less pressure and more discipline. For example, a 20-pip floating loss is approximately $20, so that if you have a 20-pip sudden move against the direction of your trade on a 100K account, that is translated into a $200 floating loss. In every transaction, by using a Mini account, the trader does not end up with a total loss as he loses only a small amount on every losing transaction. This allows him to follow his trading strategy in a disciplined manner.
4. A smaller trade size
The mini forex account trades in smaller contract sizes of 10,000 units which is 1/10 th the size of the standard account. This smaller trade size allows traders an opportunity to trade live with less overall risk. As a result, a beginner can transit or move into forex mini trading quickly from paper trading. While the standard lot is 10,000 units, the beginner trader can increase trading to more lots or units as he gains experience and confidence, and as his profits increase as a result of disciplined trading.
One hidden benefit of trading the mini forex account is that traders can become familiar with the quality and also the reliability of the forex trading platform or trading station of his broker. This is because the forex mini account utilises the same state-of-the art trading software as that for normal sized forex trading.
Mini accounts are recommended for traders with account balances of less than $10,000, allowing them more trading opportunities without over leveraging their account and hence get more staying power in the market.
We will discuss how you can exploit these features of a forex mini account to your advantage in Part #2 of this article so that it is easier to earn a consistent income trading on low capital and lower risk.

Free Forex Buy And Sell Indicator - Online Forex Tools

A free Forex Buy and Sell Indicator is a good option if you are someone who trades actively in foreign currencies. This could be a very useful tool for you if you want to keep track of the daily price rises and falls in the forex market. The application can give you precious information regarding currency trading as and when you need this. This will ensure you have the facts with you when you need to make a decision in a fluctuating market.
A free forex buy and sell indicator takes the guesswork out of forex trading. It makes sure you are trading based on solid facts and not just on a whim. It will also ensure you are backed with historical data on trends regarding the currencies you are trading in.
There are many sites where you can check out free forex buy and sell indicators. These sites offer customers software which can help predict whether it is wise to sell or to hold on to the currencies you are trading in. Some sites which offer buy and sell indicators are business4profitsystems and swingcurrency. You might want to try out a few sites and find out which one is best suited to your requirements.
Apart from the free indicators, there are a host of other sites which allow you to download such applications for a fee. Such paid sites might give you superior quality and better features, which a free one cannot offer. Applications like Forex AutoPilot - also called FAPS - are fast gaining popularity among users. This is an automated software which trades at anytime provided you leave your computer on. the software requires you to feed in the basic ranges in which you would like to trade and rest assured the software will take care of the rest. This might sound a little dicey to those of you who would like to be in total control of your forex trading. The Forex Autopilot has an in -built free forex buy and sell indicator. But this comes only in its demo version.
Another well received software for forex buy and sell indication is Doubling stocks. This software also helps you make cardinal decisions in the forex market regarding when to buy, sell or exit a trade. This is not an automated software, so you will need to do the trading yourself on the basis of what the software tells you. This would be reassuring for those of you who need to have complete control over what you are trading. This software application also comes with a free demo package. The demo software is definitely very rich and detailed. It would be a boon for those who are entering the forex trading business and provide valuable support for those who have experience in the forex markets.
Apart from these two there are many other sites which sell forex buy and sell indicators for a price. What you need to keep in mind when you purchase this software is the sensitivity of the software to daily fluctuations in the market. Automated robots like FAPS offer a demo version which allows you to do mock trading without spending a cent. You might want to try this option before you actually buy the software. This way you can be completely sure about the accuracy and the appropriateness of the advice offered.

Forex Training: Deadly Forex Mistakes That Assure Failure

Before venturing into your trading journey there are some things you need to be aware of, otherwise you could succeed on your trading adventure, and we don't want that to happen, do we? This Forex training guide will help you track the most costly mistakes Forex traders do.
First of all, make sure you don't have a trading system. Having a trading system might increase the odds of your success. If you have a system, you will have an objective way to get in and out the market. When traders create their trading systems they think objectively since there is no position to be taken at the moment. If there is no position to be taken, there is also no money at risk, if there is no money at risk, we do think objectively and are open to every possibility, thus we are able to find low risk trading opportunities. So make sure you don't have a system and trade based on a randomly approach.
If you have already created your system, then don't follow it, be undisciplined. If you follow your system, there is a possibility that you can profit from the Forex market based on the trading opportunities you have found. If you want to fail on your trading, be sure to be undisciplined.
Don't get educated. Most successful traders are very well educated in the market they trade (stocks, Forex, futures, etc.) If you get educated, you might acquire the knowledge and experience you require to master the Forex market. Don't read about the Forex market, don't enroll into Forex training programs and don't even look at historical charts.
Don't use any money management technique. The purpose of money management is to avoid the risk of ruin, but at the same time it helps you boost your profits, allowing them to grow geometrically. For instance, by using no money management techniques, there is a possibility that in loosing 10 trades in a row you could empty your trading account. On the other hand, by applying simple money management techniques you can avoid it. So make sure, if you want to fail, don't even consider money management.
Forget about psychological issues. You need to get every trade to win. Successful traders know that they don't need to win every trade in order to profit from the market. This is one characteristic that is hard to understand and really apply. Why? Because we are taught, since kids, that any number below 70% is a bad number. In the Forex trading environment, this is not true.
Don't even consider using a Risk-reward (RR) ratio greater than 1-1. If you use a RR ratio of 1-2 (willing to make twice the amount risked in one trade) then you only need a system that is right around 50% to make money. If you use a RR ratio of 1-3 (willing to make three times the amount risked in one trade) then you will need a system that is right around 40% of the time to make money. So make sure to use a RR ratio below 1-1.
By applying every point outlined in this Forex training guide, you will almost assure your failure in your Forex trading journey. Do the opposite, and you will have the possibility to achieve what every trader is looking for: consistent profitable results.

Retrieval of pinched comps begins, probe on the cards

The computers had been purchased from funds released by MLA Victor Freitas from his Local Development Fund. They were meant to be used by tribal children studying at the Marathi High School run by the Free Methodist Mission Umri (Pandharkawda). It has now come to light that the computers were taken away in a well-planned manner by another Christian trust in Yavatmal. Jaishree Dilpe, headmistress of the school which was meant to use the computers, told TOI on Wednesday that she had received 19 computers, 19 printers and other accessories in February from the Local Development Fund of sitting MLA Victor Freitas of Nagpur. However, all the computers and other accessories were taken away by the Yavatmal-based Din Bandhu' trust within two days and used in an ITI run by the institution to mint money. Initially the headmistress was reluctant to give any information on the issue, but when pressed she admitted that the computers were given to the Din Bandhu trust and also named the persons who transported the computers. "Today I got back 10 computers from Din Bandhu and they have assured to return the remaining computer sets before July 27," Dilpe said. On further queries, the headmistress also admitted that two years ago she had received five computer sets and accessories from the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan wing of the Education Department and two computer sets from the Local Development Fund of the then MLA of Kelapur Shivajirao Moghe. She was not able to give a convincing explanation when asked about the location of the seven computers she had received two years back. The headmistress pleaded innocence in the murky affairs though she admitted that the computers should have been kept in the school and used for the tribal students. "The teachers were trained under the government's SSA scheme but they could not teach the students in the absence of the infrastructure, including the computer sets," she admitted. Even though the 19 computers are coming back to the school in question, some questions remain unanswered. It needs to be revealed who filed the application for release of the MLA's fund and what were the documents filed in support of the application? What precaution did the district authority take to ascertain the veracity of the application and genuineness of the applicant? Where are the seven computers that the school received from SSA and Moghe's fund?

US scientists find ways to make electronic data self destruct

Washington (PTI): Worried that the college binge drinking photos posted on the internet will reappear to haunt during a job interview? Cheer up. Researchers have found a method that makes electronic data self destruct itself.
University of Washington researchers has developed a way to make electronic communications such as e-mail, Facebook posts and chat messages automatically self-destruct, becoming irretrievable from all Web sites, inboxes, outboxes, backup sites and home computers.
The prototype system called 'Vanish' places a time limit on text uploaded to any Web service through a Web browser.
After a set time text written will self-destruct.
Even the sender could not be able to retrieve them.
"If you care about privacy, the Internet today is a very scary place," said Tadayoshi Kohno, a UW assistant professor of computer science. "If people understood the implications of where and how their e-mail is stored, they might be more careful or not use it as often."
Computers have made it virtually impossible to leave the past behind with people inadvertently uploading data they find embarrassing later, he said.
The paper about the project will be presented at the Usenix Security Symposium August 10-14 in Montreal.

Satyam Computer has resistance at Rs 115: Gujral

Gujral told CNBC-TV18, "Satyam Computer Services has a nice consolidation around the Rs 75-80 mark and now it is in a longer term up trend. Chances are if it can hold on to the Rs 77-80 you will get to those Rs 114-115 kind of levels. You would remember when it started falling it stopped around these Rs 115 kind of levels, so now the next resistance here is around Rs 115 and going by the trend of the stock it will get there, may take some time but obviously next levels are around Rs 115.”

Mah Satyam back among top-5 IT cos; expert says still cheap

formerly Satyam Computer Services, continues to shine in the stock market. The stock, which has rallied more than 30% in the last seven days, crossed Rs 100 on July 23, and is now back among the top-five Indian IT companies’ list in terms of market capitalisation (with market cap of about Rs 12,000 crore) after Infosys, TCS, Wipro and HCL Tech.As of today, Mahindra Satyam’s market cap is greater than that of its parent company, Tech Mahindra.
Attributing the recent move up in its stock price to a bridge-up, Sanju Verma, CEO - Institution Biz, Proactive Universal Group, said the stock was still trading at a discount. “A lot of analysts are still not factoring in the 1100-1200 acres of land that Satyam holds. If they assume the company has Rs 300 crore of liabilities outstanding against that, even then, the land is still valued at something like close to Rs 11 per share. If you add this Rs 11 per share to the Rs 7 EPS you are talking of purely on the back of earnings momentum, the stock is still available at dirt cheap multiples,” she said.


US SEC reviews progress on restatement of Satyam a/cs

The US SEC team, accompanied by Sebi officials also met Tech Mahindra officials, the new owners of Satyam, to discuss a host of issues including re-statement of the manipulated accounts. Global audit firms KPMG and Deloitte have been commissioned to conduct a forensic audit of Satyam’s accounts, after founder B Ramalinga Raju confessed to fudging the books for seven years. The US SEC is probing the violation of US Securities law by former Satyam executives after a clutch of class action suits were filed by law firms representing shareholders of Satyam in the US. Shareholders alleged that the executives issued false and misleading statements. A senior Mahindra Satyam official said the restatement exercise is on track and is likely to the completed by December this year. Sebi is probing the insider trading

of shares by Raju and his family as investigating agencies including the CBI suspect that the promoters made windfall gains by rigging share prices and invested the money in realty deals. In an interim report on the Satyam investigation, SEBI has recommended prohibiting Satyam’s esrtwhile auditors and the audit firm Price Waterhouse from auditing accounts of listed companies for a certain period.

BROKER ONLINE

A broker is not the individual who acts as an intermediary between a buyer and seller, and charges a broker commission. A broker usually assumes all the risk of your transactions, whether a loan, stocks, an insurance policy or even your cheap travel tickets. A brokers reputation is always on the line, his broker knowledge is scrutinized, your happiness is the brokers responsibility. A broker will charge a broker commision based on the risk of the broker transaction. There are many types of brokers from mortgage brokers to construction brokers, ask our brokers.

EFFICTIVE FOREX TRADING

Who wouldn’t want to participate in the largest, most potentially lucrative market on this planet?Forex trading is a very exciting place to do business and if you know what it’s about, you could stand to earn a lot from it, too.To do so, you’ll need an effective forex trading system to help you put your strategies together.Here’s how you can develop oneKnow your limits.Generally, it’s the leverage you’re looking at when you’re trading forex. A 100:1 leverage will make you bless the day you found forex, IF it works in your favor and curse it if it goes against you. Maximizing your leverage may put you at a high potential for a very lucrative profit but it also places you at a high risk of losing it all.Try to work using a forex trading system that lets you limit the risk in your favor. The key here is to manage your account and your money and not to throw it away on a whim.Always put a limit on your trades.Decide on how much exactly you want to trade and stick to it. You should also decide up to what point you want to take your losses. Respect this covenant with yourself. Break it only if you’re already well-experienced, know exactly what you’re doing and can take the risk.Learn to read the trend.Forex trading is heavy on trends, something you should watch out for. If you want to develop an effective forex trading system, learn to read daily and later, weekly charts. This will help you analyze the direction the market is going. Find the indicators you want to work with and use those to determine if it’s the right time to start trading.

Who wouldn’t want to participate in the largest, most potentially lucrative market on this planet?Forex trading is a very exciting place to do business and if you know what it’s about, you could stand to earn a lot from it, too.To do so, you’ll need an effective forex trading system to help you put your strategies together.Here’s how you can develop oneKnow your limits.Generally, it’s the leverage you’re looking at when you’re trading forex. A 100:1 leverage will make you bless the day you found forex, IF it works in your favor and curse it if it goes against you. Maximizing your leverage may put you at a high potential for a very lucrative profit but it also places you at a high risk of losing it all.Try to work using a forex trading system that lets you limit the risk in your favor. The key here is to manage your account and your money and not to throw it away on a whim.Always put a limit on your trades.Decide on how much exactly you want to trade and stick to it. You should also decide up to what point you want to take your losses. Respect this covenant with yourself. Break it only if you’re already well-experienced, know exactly what you’re doing and can take the risk.Learn to read the trend.Forex trading is heavy on trends, something you should watch out for. If you want to develop an effective forex trading system, learn to read daily and later, weekly charts. This will help you analyze the direction the market is going. Find the indicators you want to work with and use those to determine if it’s the right time to start trading.
Who wouldn’t want to participate in the largest, most potentially lucrative market on this planet?Forex trading is a very exciting place to do business and if you know what it’s about, you could stand to earn a lot from it, too.To do so, you’ll need an effective forex trading system to help you put your strategies together.Here’s how you can develop oneKnow your limits.Generally, it’s the leverage you’re looking at when you’re trading forex. A 100:1 leverage will make you bless the day you found forex, IF it works in your favor and curse it if it goes against you. Maximizing your leverage may put you at a high potential for a very lucrative profit but it also places you at a high risk of losing it all.Try to work using a forex trading system that lets you limit the risk in your favor. The key here is to manage your account and your money and not to throw it away on a whim.Always put a limit on your trades.Decide on how much exactly you want to trade and stick to it. You should also decide up to what point you want to take your losses. Respect this covenant with yourself. Break it only if you’re already well-experienced, know exactly what you’re doing and can take the risk.Learn to read the trend.Forex trading is heavy on trends, something you should watch out for. If you want to develop an effective forex trading system, learn to read daily and later, weekly charts. This will help you analyze the direction the market is going. Find the indicators you want to work with and use those to determine if it’s the right time to start trading.

HOME MOME ADS

There are not too many left but if you are a stay at home mom odds are that you just might be in the market for something that can allow you to fulfill your family or other non-work obligations but at the same time allow you to bring a monetary contribution into the home.The good news for you is that the days of having to pay top dollar for adequate daycare for your child or children so that you can rejoin the workforce are gone. You can get back to work, still be with your children, still keep deadlines, dance recitals, and doctors appointments while bringing in what very well can be a very generous income.If you have access to the Internet and motivation, a home based Internet business is just screaming your name. You do not have to invest a bunch of money to get started; the only thing that you need to invest is a little time.Maybe it is financial reasons that have caused you to consider working again; maybe you have gotten a bit restless and are looking for something a bit more challenging than what you are currently doing. Whatever the case is, today is the day that you can change it all while still balancing your current lifestyle.If a lack of confidence is one of the obstacles holding you back, don’t worry. There may have been a time when you were out daily as part of the workforce and you were confident and ready. This may an image that is frozen in time but as you reconnect with people again, you will gain it all back, plus some.Too many stay at home moms truly believe that there choices are so limited that they can either return to work on a full time basis or not. This is so not the case because you can return to work with an extremely flexible schedule and have the best of both worlds in no time.

ASUS Eee PC

Shortly after I started my own business I realized that I would be traveling to meet with clients and to do research for my work, so my desktop and media center laptop wouldn’t cut it. I didn’t really need a system that could handle high end graphics or media play back, all I really needed was something compact and light that could connect to the internet and used word processing. Companies like Sony offered solutions to this problem with their lightweight laptops, but I just didn’t have the $1,000 to spend on it. Then I learned about the Asus Eee PC.Based around the same concept as the OLPC project, the Asus Eee PC is meant to be a lightweight and easy to use learning device. Regardless of what they intended the device to do, it’s clearly capable of even greater feats than originally intended. The Eee PC comes in four models for it’s 701 Series: 2G Surf, 4G Surf, 4G, and 8G. While the number denotes the amount of physical hard drive space on the solid state disk and a few other differences, each system is equipped with a 7 in 800—480 TFT LCD with LED backlight, Integrated Intel GMA 900 graphics processor, Integrated 802.11 b/g wifi, 3 USB inputs, VGA Output, Ethernet Input, Kensington Lock, and MMC SD slot. The Surf models offer a battery life of 2.8 hours where as the other two models offer 3-3.5 hours and a built in webcam.The 2G Surf is equipped with an 800 MHz Intel Celeron-M ULV 353 with the rest equipped with a 900 MHz version of the same chip. The 2G Surf also only has 512mb of DDR2 400 Ram soldered in while the 4G Surf and 4G have socketed 512mb DDR2 533/667 and the 8G with 1GB. The prices start as low as $299 for the 2G Surf and as high as $499 for the 8G. [More]

PROFESSIONAL FOREX TRADING SYSTEMS

If you are serious in venturing to Forex, these books are worth for investment. The Blade Forex Strategies will be a good reference as you venture for Forex business. With its time proven and tested strategies, these will give you an edge to start off your trading skills. Capturing trades with your sharpen trading skills through the Blade Forex Strategies is definitely as easy task and a sure way to success.

BLADE FOREX STRATEGIES

The methods were explained thoroughly in a step by step procedure. To thoroughly comprehend the strategies and systems discussed in the book, somehow a pre-knowledge about Forex would be an advantage.The application of these systems has resulted to consistency in the trading and high profits with a minimal risk. With this guarantee, the books are indeed worth to invest. Anyhow there is the 100% money back guarantee for eight weeks in case you are not satisfied with the content of the book.But with this case, I doubt that you will ask for your money back as the strategies are formulated from a seasoned trader and are profitable strategies. Besides with the various system strategy options, it will give you an opportunity to evaluate the system which works best for you.

Another Indonesian maid suffers abuse in Malaysia

Another Indonesian maid has allegedly been abused by a Malaysian employer.Modesta Rangga, 26, told the Indonesian Embassy on Friday she had been abused almost daily since she started working with her employer in Kampung Ampang Baru, a suburb of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, almost two years ago.Modesta claims she suffered a severed right earlobe, and had bruises on her body and thighs as well as scars on her face.She alleged that her employer had hit her with a cane, sticks and even punched her in the face and body, and also claimed she was only given one meal per day, sometimes none at all.“My boss would sometimes throw rice into the drain and make me eat from there,” said Modesta, who was born in Sumba Barat, Nusa Tenggara Timur.Modesta also claimed she had not been paid since she started working with her employer in November 2007. Her salary was supposed to be RM500 (Rp 1.4 million) a month.The latest incident allegedly happened at midnight on Thursday after her employer asked her why she had not done the laundry.“I told my boss it was going to rain and I was afraid the clothes would get wet if I aired them. She just started hitting me and locked me out of the house,” Modesta said, adding that her employer would also make her work in her mother’s house in Kampung Baru.Neighbours who saw the maid outside the house alerted the police.Police picked up the employer for questioning at Pandan Indan police station and later remanded her. Modesta was sent to Ampang Hospital for treatment.Indonesian Embassy spokesman Widyarka Ryananta said doctors confirmed Modesta’s hearing had been impaired. “Her right eye is also damaged,” Widyarka said.

http://www.iqseek.com

I Q Seek is a good looking search engine which displays not only its own search results but also those of Bay9, Goto and others. Above these listings are the IQ Seek paid listings. You can list your site on IQ Seek for as low as 20 dollars, you pay a minimum of 1 cent per click through. IQ Seek seems to be getting good traffic and I would recommend them. IQ Seek also has an affiliate program with Befree. 225 Ways To Make Money At Home Ósubkuchonline technologies, Ahmedabad 225 Ways To Make Money At Home Ósubkuchonline technologies, Ahmedabad

Monster Scalps With AUDJPY

I've been shamelessly scalping the AUDJPY this week (via Oanda). It may be hard to fathom, at least when you see the numbers, but I'm not entirely happy with my results.Jun 28: 00.28% NAV+Jun 29: 06.65% NAV+Jun 30: 11.66% NAV+So far this week, if I can hang onto it, I'm up over 19% on my trading account.Now, you may be wondering why I'm not satisfied with my trading. Basically, I've made too many mistakes. From time to time my discipline is lacking and I jump into a position at what is realistically an unwise entry point.This keeps me from capitalizing on later opportunities until I've extracted myself from the position foolishly entered. It also subjects me to a lot more stress while I wait out moves on a larger timeframe.Anyhow, I've decided to quit fooling around, scalp myself a decent stake, and get serious about trading. Now, if I can just work out my discipline issues I'll be set.

Recent Forex Efforts

Since the recent yen cross meltdown started I've been trying to keep from getting caught on the wrong side of any massive downward moves.As I generally trade only the AUDJPY, mostly on the long side, things have been pretty quiet!However, we are now facing some resistance at 74.50 on the 1hr -- which should be illustrative. We have done what might be a triple bounce off of support in the vicinity of 70.90 or so too. I'm thinking we may have another downturn to confirm support but we could certainly get right back to business without it.In any case, as the market is starting to act rational, I'm just about ready to start trading according to my own particular

Inspiring Inspiron from Dell

I purchased the Dell Inspiron 1545 laptop back in January for my daughter's birthday. I had a limited budget but wanted to get her something with decent enough spec for playing computer games should she wish to do this, and a large hard drive as she is a big fan of making videos on her digital camera and downloading music - two things which can eat up hard drive space.
I did a fair bit of research before purchasing and decided I wanted to get the best spec I possibly could for my money and the Inspiron ticked all the boxes. I paid £399 in January 2009 in Currys for the laptop which was the absolute limit on my budget.
The Dell I purchased has a dark blue coloured lid, however the rest of it is a shiny piano black which looks lovely. I would have preferred metal for the mousepad area - it feels sturdier and doesn't seem to attract the dust the way the piano black plastic does - however that's a small quibble. The screen is widescreen and measures 15.6 inches and overall it's pretty lightweight and easy to carry about if you wish to do so.
So - what came in the box?
As well as the laptop there was an instruction manual, mains lead, Dell restoration CD-ROMs and a CD-ROM for Works 9.
The laptop had Windows Vista Premium pre-installed - and I worried that this might be a challenge for me as it was my introduction to Vista - however setting the machine up was a piece of cake.
I merely switched it on and dealt with a few prompts as Vista set up and then the computer was up and running. It has wifi installed and this picked up my wireless connection without any problems - and once I entered the security details for my network we were home and dry and online in no time!
When I was researching laptops I learned that you really need a minimum of 2GB RAM to run Vista properly, so this was another factor to consider when deciding the spec I needed for her laptop.
The laptop had a trial version of MacAfee installed but I decided to ignore this and installed AVG instead as my daughter is more familiar with it. I also decided to install the Works program that came with the laptop rather than Office as she really only needs a word processing program at the moment. I was concerned she may find it hard to use at first but we had no such worries.
- it loads really quickly and smoothly. The processor is an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.00 Ghz and there is 3GB RAM. This combination makes the Inspiron easily the fastest computer in the house - making me What I really noticed about this little beauty was the speed green with envy!
So onto the litmus test - did my daughter like it? Well yes - she loved it! She was really pleased to have this compact little laptop in her bedroom instead of the old desktop computer she had had in the past. She loved how she didn't need a wireless adaptor, the speed, and everything about it! The laptop has a large hard drive of 250 GB but this is half full already - just over 3 months since she got it, so I can foresee me having to get an external hard drive for her in the future.
I had worried about her learning how to use Vista, but like all 12 year olds, she picked it up far quicker than I did, so my fears were unfounded.
There are three USB ports, which so far I have found sufficient. The laptop does have speakers but they are a bit on the tinny side and given my daughter listens to a lot of music on her computer, I got her some USB powered speakers which offer fantastic sound quality.
The laptop also has an integral SD card reader which is invaluable for my daughter as she can easily upload photos and videos from her camera and also copy music onto the SD card she uses in her new Nintendo DSi.
There is a CD/DVD RW drive which works a treat - my daughter thoroughly enjoys making music CDs up using it and has also burned the occasional DVD featuring some of her many video clips. She can also watch DVDs on the laptop but hasn't used the laptop this way - she prefers to watch her DVDs on TV. It also came with Windows Media Center already installed which was an extra bonus as my daughter was already familiar with this from her old desktop computer and was delighted to still be able to use it for her videos, photos and music.
The Inspiron I purchased does not have a built-in webcam but this feature is available on some models.
The one thing we haven't tested is the battery life - Dell claim it's 2 hours however. As my daughter hasn't removed it from her bedroom since she got it I cannot tell you for sure. As she just recently broke the screen on my Samsung laptop, resulting in a large repair bill, she is probably too scared to move this one!
I am really pleased with the Dell Inspiron 1545 and think it's a really good buy for children or students as it's easy to use, fast to load and has a large hard drive but is available at a good price for the spec offered.
I do advise getting some half decent speakers to use with it however and cleaning it regularly - the piano black doesn't half attract the dust and show up fingerprints.
Overall this is a good machine for the money and it can be found in various outlets right now, including Currys, Tesco and Dell online.
**Previously published on dooyoo by me under the same user name

For USA members who seeks to get Mortgage or refinance

Banks are there to make money and I would like educate you as how the Mortage market works. first of all Banks compound your interest rate daily .. that's bad..for example if you take out a loan or a Mortage 6% for 30 years, $300,000 you end up paying over $700,000 . What is the solution ? you can double payments that will reduce your 30 years to about 24 years. You can ask your Banker to have a simple interest loand which I will doubt it if they will give it to you.Also for member who are 60 years and older and they have equity on their house over $65,000 you can have a reverse Mortgage(refinance to this concept).What is a reverse Mortgage, simply you stop paying your mortgage bill until all your equity will become zero, nada, nothing left. At that time either you die or if you sell your house the Banker will get most of the preoceeds.With the new era and economic collapse, they Banks right now will give a 30 years mortgage 4%. If you can get that you will never be able to beat this rate any where and time . Good luck.

HSBC Mortgages

My partner has banked with HSBC since his student days and has had his fair share of run-ins with them (like over-extending the overdraft and maxing out the credit card etc!) but has mellowed out somewhat in the time we have been together. Following a period of what I fondly refer to as 'credit hell' we having been working our butts off ever since to try and improve our credit rating to get back to a clean slate. Circumstances came up (at not such a great time, which is normal)and we found ourselves in need of getting or having 12 months to find a lender who would offer us a mortgage. It seemed that every avenue we turned to ended in a closed door and so we went down to HSBC with not too many hopes. The mortgage advisor was fantastic. He told it to us straight, told us the things we needed to do and ultimately, he gave us a goal to work towards. We came out not feeling like we had been laughed, which, after a fair few declines, is no small feat, and began working towards the light at the end of the tunnel. Well, the year is almost up and boy, have we worked hard. We went back to our friendly mortgage advisor to check that we were on track and he congratulated us on our efforts, which made us feel very pleased with ourselves. Like he said, the only way for us to truly improve our credit is to get a mortgage and in order to do that, someone has to take a gamble on us so that we can prove ourselves... HSBC are taking that gamble and I believe that it would take a very big something to stop us from banking with them from now on. They have been the friendly face that you so rarely get from Banks and Building Societies these days and once we're on the ladder, we won't forget all the hard work we had to put in to get there.

Re-mortgaging with the Royal Bank of Scotland

I've been a home-owner now for about eleven years: bought my first house as the market hit rock bottom and and am still there. Naive as I was then about financial matters, I took advice from a professional and ended up with an endowment mortgage. I expect you can guess what happened next. Actually it wasn't that bad: I still had fifteen years to run on my mortgage and am young enough to get another 25-year mortgage. So that's what I decided to do.
I have banked with Royal Bank of Scotland ever since they took over Williams & Glynn's Bank nearly 20 years ago and while I've had other bank accounts as well, both personal and treasurers' accounts for some clubs I've been involved in, as well as building society accounts, RBS have always won hands down when it comes to customer service and helpfulness. Also, and this is VERY IMPORTANT, you can phone your branch up and speak to a real person instead of phoning a call centre and going through endless menus in order to talk to someone who can't or won't help you. So when it came time to re-mortgage, I looked at the available options with the intention to go with RBS unless something spectacularly better came up. It didn't - in fact the current account mortgage I decided on had one of the best rates I could find and in addition, the Bank paid all the legal fees and the valuation fee.
The actual process was simple. I filled out the application form and sent it off with the necessary copies of my payslip etc. The bank made an appointment to send their surveyor round and my partner stayed home that day. The bank's solicitors did all the legal work: they are based up north but there is no reason whatsover, with a routine transaction, why I should have needed to see them in person, and I didn't. I did speak to them a couple of times and they were friendly, helpful and phoned me back when they said they would. I had to do very little myself. The current account mortgage works like a huge overdraft secured on my house. I have my salary paid into it and all my direct debits etc. come out of it. The rate varies depending on how much you owe in relation to the value of your property – for me, fortunately, it’s in the lowest bracket. I am saving loads of money each month and actually paying the mortgage off, not merely paying the interest. I can use PC banking which was not available with the building society I had my previous mortgage with. There is no redemption penalty if I win the lottery and decide to pay the mortgage off. I could go on but you'd get bored.
The whole thing, from me deciding to re-mortgage to the money being in my new current account, took around six weeks. Whenever something cropped up, as things do, I simply rang my local branch (or they rang me) and talked to one of three ladies whose names I knew and who, despite being busy, took as much time as was necessary to sort out whatever needed sorting in the friendliest manner imaginable. There was one snag: the mortgage insurance. This is supposed to be free for the first six months and I expected the premium to start being taken out of my account at the beginning of this year, but this never happened. It seems that somewhere along the line, the application had gone astray: I've never established whether it was me, the bank or the insurance company who lost it. This is a minor problem - it had the potential to be major if anything had happened but I was lucky.
The Royal Bank of Scotland are only human, and do make mistakes from time to time. Little ones, in my experience, and not very often. They use their vast electronic machine to help, not to hide behind. I wish all banks were this nice!

How to Become a Forex Broker

It is a fact that you can make money with currency trading on Forex. Indeed, Forex investing is one of the most potentially rewarding types of investments available. Since individual traders and companies have equal chance to expand in Forex trading, we all have the option to becoming a forex trading broker in order to generate more revenue.
In order to help with your trading strategy and transactions, it is recommended that you must find a forex broker if you are new to the FOREX. The forex broker acts as a liaison of the client to the forex market, which provides technical analysis and research of the market situation and guides the client on the methods of trade as well. All of the information he provides is believed to increase the client's profit.
Before I will discuss on how to become a forex broker, here are some reasons why should you become one. As a forex trading broker you provide your customers access to the freedom that comes from actively trading their own money online on secure forex trading platforms. Since you offer your clients some money making opportunities and some investments, you are then greatly improving the scope and reputation of your own business leading to greater client retention levels. Aside from the fact that you are paid a commission you can also take advantage of the explosive growth in the demand for alternative investments by offering your high-net worth clients a managed forex account.
Becoming a forex broker is simple. A currency trading broker in the Forex trading market is like being a realtor in the property market. Here are steps to becoming one. Becoming Licensed and Registered. Sign on to a licensed business or seek appropriate securities license and fill out a registration form with the SEC in order to be a full service broker. Take note that licensing is different depending on which state you live in. If you move from state to state, license is not always acknowledged. You’re ready to start trading once registered.
However, if you want to become a business broker only and not a full service forex broker, you may work at a brokerage house. You may either go to school or try to learn forex trading by yourself in order to get license. Remember, knowledge is power for the successful broker! A successful forex broker is aware of what’s happening in the world. Forex brokers research heavily on all political and economic news from the countries for which they hold currency.
Forex brokers are much like any other broker that act as the middleman for the individual and the market itself. They key to a successful forex broker is to get licensed and educated about how the market works. With this article you now have information on how to become a forex broker. Get licensed and registered and start forex trading. Soon you will just be sitting up in your multi-million

Knowledge in Forex Trading

I read all the time about how important it is to learn lots of information to trade forex and how you continually need to learn, but this is NOT true. Succesful Forex trading is actually very simple and the knowledge is easy to acquire, yet 90% of traders lose - so why is this ?Because knowledge alone is not enough, furthermore you need to learn the right knowledge and most forex traders don't.There are plenty of very smart people who lose and plenty of small potato investors who make a lot. The fact you have a lot of knowledge or are clever does not ensure success and in most cases ensures you lose.Let's look at this in more detail.The right knowledge Is not hard to acquire and starts from learning yourself and not trying to get a short cut to success by buying it - if you think you can buy success you are going to lose.Trading means getting knowledge that works and you can have confidence in.Your aim is to make money, not be clever and you can build a simple system from free resources on the net.Simple systems beat complicated systems as they are easier to understand, easier to apply and make more money as they are more robust.Fact is most of the top traders in the world use simple systems.We have been traders for over 22 years and our system is simple:Trend lines, support and resistance to spot trends and 3 confirming indicators and that's it and it works.The right knowledge is easy to acquire but the trick is you MUST understand it, to have confidence and this gives you the trait that most traders lack. DisciplineIf you try and follow someone else you won't have confidence and you won't be able to follow a system with discipline. Unless your knowledge is acquired by you and you have confidence, you won't be able to follow your trading system through losing periods. You will simply throw in the towelDiscipline sounds easy to acquire but it isn't - it's extremely hard to hold your emotions in check.How do I get the RIGHT KnowledgeForget all the e-books, courses and other forex education sold on the net.Go to Amazon and get some books by top traders, who have walked the walk rather than simply talk the talk.Most sold info on the net is not worth the money and you can get far better knowledge cheaper at your local bookstore.Good books to start with are Jack Schwager - Market Wizards and New Market Wizards - the interviews here are all with legendary traders and is a great inspiring read.Then get some books on trader psychology.I am a big fan of Jake Bernstein who really shows how important and elusive getting the right trading psychology is and really hits it home.Another favourite of mine is Trader Vic by Victor Sperandeo, a fantastic book covering all you need to know from money management to system building.Done that?Then go on the net and build a simple system based around technical analysis, a breakout methodology find a few indicators you like to confirm trend momentum and you're all set to go. Sounds simple?Building the system is the easy part - getting the right mindset is the hard part - good luck.

Online Forex Broker Profile

MoneyForex Financial Ltd. is one of the world leading online currency trading broker offering low pips and commission-free online forex trading. Founded by Wall Street veterans, MoneyForex's vision is to service individual and corporate investors such as money managers, banks, and financial institutions in easing the complexity in dealing with forex trading. Our dealing software which specialized in forex dealing is rated second to none for it user friendly environment. Lightning speed and efficient execution is one of its many benefits.MoneyForex Financial Ltd. is incorporated in British Virgin Island (Registration Number 629302) under the provisions of the International Business Companies Act, 1984. MoneyForex is authorized to offer futures, securities, and foreign exchange as a forex broker and primary market maker.MoneyForex is founded by a group of Wall Street Veterans who has more than 30 years experience in the financial market. Other than the financial industry, the group operates various businesses including real estate development, media communication, advertising, internet technology and software application and development.In this complex forex market, a user friendly platform is a must in order to make fast and efficient trading decision and execution. Our trading platform is rated the most user friendly by professional traders. MoneyForex's clients consist of financial institutions, money managers as well as individual investors.We take pride in our professional staff that is thoroughly trained to look after the best interests of our clients. Our professional staff is available twenty-four hours a day (Monday to Friday) to answer your inquiry. Try out our service by open a free demo forex account.

Can you explain the strategy of business growth and expansion plans of your bank? What are the targets for 2009-1 O?

Notwithstanding the global economic slowdown, SBB) has maintained a healthy growth in business and profitability in 2008-09 with net profit growth of 28.1%. For the year 2009­10, the bank is targeting a business growth of Rs 18,600 crore, as against the growth of Rs 9,885 crore in 2008-09. For the purpose, special emphasis is being laid on the retail segment, particularly agriculture, housing, education and SMEs. Branch expansion shaH also be pursued Vigorously keeping in view the potential at select centers.

How does your bank compete with other banks, especiallv cooperative banks, in the statl?

AU branches are on core banking solution and the bank has satellite connectivity even in the remotest corner of the state. Today SBB) offers multiple products and delivery channels which include internet banking at all branches, online funds transfer, B2B payments, utility and other biH payments, online tax payments, railway freight payments, etc. The bank has about 500 ATMs which are connected to State Bank group ATM network. Overall, SBB) is far ahead in terms of network, business size and technology particularly compared to cooperative banks in the state.

What are the major projects currently at ')BBF

SBB) is amongst the first few public sector banks in the country with all branches on core banking. One of the major projects at hand is to optimize the usage of technology to offer value added services to customers. Amongst the major objective is to migrate more and more customers towards alternate delivery channels particularly internet banking and ATMs. The bank is also implementing BPR exercise whereby most of the bank office functions are being centralized so that branches can focus more on improving customer service, sales and marketing. We are endeavoring to boost non-interest income by cross selling life and non-life insurance, mutual funds and credit cards, besides expanding the coverage of online share trading facility launched during 2008-09.

Is the NRls' contribution in your bank increasing'? \\ hat is the percentage of the NRls' clientele?

The bank has a customer base of nearly 70,000 NRls. The deposits from NRls have increased from Rs 637 crore in March 2005 to Rs 813 crore in March 2009.

What are the major changes observed in the pattern of savings, fixed deposits, loan taking, etc, over a period of time?

The interest rates have generally gone up in the financial system (barring the last six months when policy rates have been cut aggressively to combat the economic slowdown). As a result, there has been an increasing preference of our customers towards the term deposits which provides better return to depositors. Between March 2005 and March 2009, the share of term deposits in total deposits of the bank has gone up from 56.9% to 62.2%. The share of savings and current deposits has correspondingly gone down, although in quantitative terms, even CASA deposits have grown by over 80% between March 2005 and March 2009. Likewise in case of advances, over the last few years there has been substantial upscaling of advances in commercial and institutional (C&I) segment particularly by financing of infrastructure sector projects. Accordingly, the proportionate share of C&I segment in total advances has gone up from 36.1% in March 2005 to about 50.4% in March 2009. The share of personal segment and small scale industries has correspondingly gone down, although in quantitative terms advances to these segments too have gone up significantly over the last few years.

Mehul: What is the percentage of the people of Rajsthan in the total customer hase of your bank?

Arun Shandilya: SBB) has a strong network of 860 branches. Of these, 698 branches are in Rajasthan which is the largest network among all banks operating in the state. Of these, 524 branches are located in rural and semi-urban areas, which play an important role in rural development and poverty alleviation in the state. Even in terms of number of customers, about 93% of them emanate from Rajasthan. The percentage of SBB) customers (both deposits and advances) is about 9.8% of total population and about 19% of the adult population of the state, which is the highest amongst all banks in Rajasthan. Over the last few years, the bank has made significant progress towards financial inclusion and providing services to hitherto un-banked population of the state.

State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur (SBBJ) has a strong network of 698 branches in Rajasthan

State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur (SBBJ) has a strong network of 698 branches in Rajasthan. the largest network among all banks operating in the state. SBBJ alone has a customer base of nearly 70.000 NRls. Arun Shandilya. managing director, SBBJ. speaks to Mehul Dani on a wide range of issues:

Manoj: Heart to heart commerce?

PK Nair: If you analyse the set of customers today, how many of them would be the younger generation and what is the kind of products and services they would ask for in the next five years? Do you have a set of products and services you think you will introduce three years from now? So what happens to that next set of products and services which that generation is going to demand? Where's that coming from?
Venkatramaiah: True to the younger generation today, all banks offer internet banking, mobile banking,
Sunder Rajan: For the Nano car booking loan, we went in for marketing face-to-face. We did not depend much on internet and website. At the branch level, we were driving the branch people to interact with the customers. The results spoke for themselves. The three leading banks that did well were SBl, ICICI Bank followed by Central Bank of India. What we did was display a notice board at the branches and we encouraged the staff to ask customers whether they were interested in booking the Nano. We even offered tips. Some customers were fussy and don't want to buy a low-end car. So we suggested that they buy it as a gift for their son or wife - a second car. We did well. We also had a relationship with some dealers with whom we exchanged information.
PK Nair: What Tata Motors did was created a mini website within their website and in that they had a series of discussions. What they wanted to find out was whether it should be positioned as a second car for customers or a safety car because the world is increasingly going green. They used the internet as a medium as it can be accessed immaterial of the location. From a banker's perspective, we would be mainly interested in the booking amount and the fee amount. For Tata, it helped them immensely to get better feedback on how to segment the car and the customer segment to target and also the additional functionalities they need to bring. Normally they would have done a huge market research exercise that would have cost them crores of rupees. Here they have got the feedback for free which the customer has come and given to them. That's the differentiation you can bring and the trend we are seeing.
Srinivas: You are aware that the public sector banks are becoming tech-savvy and providing lots of facilities, etc. But we believe that human interaction is more important. Earlier RBI pushed for customer satisfaction; from here they have now moved to customer excellence. Now the buzzword is customer ecstasy. We should be in a position to offer services to customers that they are not expecting. This could be in the form of mutual funds, insurance, etc.
Manoj: 1 am sure all of you must have moved house some time or the other in the past. This means changing addresses with banks, insurance, mutual funds. [ am just wondering whether banks be the agents for various other segments such as mobile phones and others?
Hegde: Even the bank pass book is accepted as one of the proof of address.
Taneja: 1 think there are two aspects to this especially when you are engaging with a client whose contact information or address keep changing regularly. First part is there are some ways in which we can anticipate what is going to happen. As a bank, I will accept change in contact numbers through various channels including the phone, internet banking, etc. The address on the account will not change till the customer gives me a letter because that is the KYC. Customers who like to keep in touch with the bank or like to receive alerts will probably update their phone numbers first because it will be done qUickly because typically banks will accept such requests over the phone, or through email or the internet. Whenever that happens, it is an alert by itself. It could also suggest that the customer has shifted the location itself. Maybe as a bank what I can do is ask the customer whether he has shifted his residence too. Other indicators are that might have stopped issuing cheques which were earlier happening on a monthly basis. The other point raised here is whether banks can help the customer change his address in respect to other things such as magazines, mobile phone operators, etc. I think as far as themselves. The three leading banks that did well were SBl, ICICI Bank followed by Central Bank of India. What we did was display a notice board at the branches and we encouraged the staff to ask customers whether they were interested in booking the Nano. We even offered tips. Some customers were fussy and don't want to buy a low-end car. So we suggested that they buy it as a gift for their son or wife - a second car. We did well. We also had a relationship with some dealers with whom we exchanged information.
PK Nair: What Tata Motors did was created a mini website within their website and in that they had a series of discussions. What they wanted to find out was whether it should be positioned as a second car for customers or a safety car because the world is increasingly going green. They used the internet as a medium as it can be accessed immaterial of the location. From a banker's perspective, we would be mainly interested in the booking amount and the fee amount. For Tata, it helped them immensely to get better feedback on how to segment the car and the customer segment to target and also the additional functionalities they need to bring. Normally they would have done a huge market research exercise that would have cost them crores of rupees. Here they have got the feedback for free which the customer has come and given to them. That's the differentiation you can bring and the trend we are seeing.
Srinivas: You are aware that the public sector banks are becoming tech-savvy and providing lots of facilities, etc. But we believe that human interaction is more important. Earlier RBI pushed for customer satisfaction; from here they have now moved to customer excellence. Now the buzzword is customer ecstasy. We should be in a position to offer services to customers that they are not expecting. This could be in the form of mutual funds, insurance, etc.
Manoj: 1 am sure all of you must have moved house some time or the other in the past. This means changing addresses with banks, insurance, mutual funds. [ am just wondering whether banks be the agents for various other segments such as mobile phones and others?
Hegde: Even the bank pass book is accepted as one of the proof of address.
Taneja: 1 think there are two aspects to this especially when you are engaging with a client whose contact information or address keep changing regularly. First part is there are some ways in which we can anticipate what is going to happen. As a bank, I will accept change in contact numbers through various channels including the phone, internet banking, etc. The address on the account will not change till the customer gives me a letter because that is the KYC. Customers who like to keep in touch with the bank or like to receive alerts will probably update their phone numbers first because it will be done qUickly because typically banks will accept such requests over the phone, or through email or the internet. Whenever that happens, it is an alert by itself. It could also suggest that the customer has shifted the location itself. Maybe as a bank what I can do is ask the customer whether he has shifted his residence too. Other indicators are that might have stopped issuing cheques which were earlier happening on a monthly basis. The other point raised here is whether banks can help the customer change his address in respect to other things such as magazines, mobile phone operators, etc. I think as far as

advertise their personal messages on the board - anything that they may want to advertise. This has happened 10 years ago.

PK Nair: But the point is that you may 2000 branches and it is hard to replicate the same across all the branches.
Rajesh: What I am trying to say is that informally the PSUs are already doing it. They interact with so many customers daily that it is easy for them to bounce off the information to customers. For instance, if a customer purchases a car and is unhappy with his choice, the bank on hearing about this could pass on the information to other prospective customers. They can then make it formal.
PK Nair: Do you offer the car loan from a branch or do you offer it from a retail asset group?
Asha: It is now a centralized retail asset hub. But the leads are sourced through the branch. When 1 have a wide network of 2000 branches, why do I need to centralize it? Some banks do not have the advantage of a network.
Narayanan: The question is whether your marketing is information driven or transformation driven. Information driven marketing may be able to give you volumes but not values, especially in an era which is either customer convenience or affinity. What is required is to reach the headlines or the heartlines. That's what going to count. If you manage to hit the heartlines of the customer, there is no need to hit the headlines. Information may help you to reach the headlines, but unless your personal relationship at the touchpoint of the customer will only help you to reach the heartlines. And when you reach the heartlines, your relationship with the customer gets strengthened. And that's why it's the greatest relationship for banking because it is almost relationship driven.

CHALLENGES IN MIGRATION

What have been the challenges for these institutions in migrating from a legacy system to the new system?
Arivazhagan avers that HDFC, even when it came to be established, had been a forward-looking organization. "There had been fairly large scale automation in the organization - like in accounts. As such, automation of the loan system was not a major challenge. Even employees were pretty ready and they undertook the migration in an effortless manner. We had made provisions for continuous training for them at various levels. At no point of time, we had any parallel system running. Again the roll over was done in phases, location by location and this also helped in creating an awareness and in training the staff appropriately."
In the case of Union Bank of India, while data capturing in the manual system has been a difficult proposition, the bank had CBS in place and there had been no major legacy issues. "The database was available centrally," says Srivastava, "and so it was a question of implementing the system and training the people to make use of it. We had a team of 113 people and we implemented the system in a phased manner with meticulous planning. We adopted 'training the trainer' method and this proved to be beneficial. In a matter of eight to nine months, we could train some 3,700 people across all our branches before the system was rolled out in December 2008. This has been a sort of record."
Says Saraswati Shankar: "I do not foresee any major challenges in migrating to this system as the bank is very tech savvy and there is a CBS in place. Even training the people is not going to be any major challenge. LAPS will only strengthen our operations and business. All our branches will be covered by the system once implemented."
For Vijaya Bank, though the existing loan processing mechanism is predominantly manual, Kalia expects the migration to be a smooth affair. The bank will undertake to give adequate hands-on training to the field functionaries.
Shamugam says even when haVing a manual system, Mahindra Finance had operated on a centralized model - data available centrally. "This proved to be beneficial for us when we shifted from a legacy system to a robust ERP system. This has enabled us from 2000 till today to have a full fledged system to seamlessly capture data from various locations in a centralized server and to make the data and information available at various required levels. This actually helped us to automate our loan system in a smoother and effortless manner."

LOS offers interface with USDA system

Associated Software Consultants (ASC) PowerLender loan origination software (LOS) has been updated to offer lenders the ability to upload loan files to the US department of agriculture's (USDA) Guaranteed Underwriting System (GUS). PowerLender successfully completed a series of compatibility tests for submitting files to the USDA's GUS using both the MISMO AUS 2.3.1 .xml format, as well as the Fannie Mae DU/ DU3.2 format. The USDA Rural Development Program, which offers loans that do not require a down payment or private mortgage insurance, traditionally offered loans for low- and very-low-income homeowners. inputs to these agencies as well as the RBI as per mandatory requirements. The reports are generated by the system and there is no manual intervention at any point of time. As I told you earlier, we subscribe to Crisil's rating services and the rating of a customer is carried out in the system using the Crisil figures."
Arivazhagan goes a step further and says HDFC's system has a provision to predict possible payment defaults by borrowers. "We generate reports to credit information agencies based on the behavior of the customers."

DATA INTEGRITY

How is storage of data done and how is its integrity ensured throughout the loan lifecycle?
Srivastava says the system has strong access controls. Data inputting is based on maker/checker concept while documents are stored in PDF format. "Access control ensures that the integrity of data is maintained all throughout the loan life cycle," he adds.
Arivazhagan too says in the HDFC system there is a very tight hierarchy-based access controls. The system is also protected through the usual firewalls and anti-virus systems. The customers are given user IDs and passwords to access the system.
"The data is basically in PDF files. However, I must say that compared to banks or mutual funds, our transactions are not huge. It could be just IS transactions at the maximum per account. Hence storage is not a major issue for us," he says.
Kalia says the system the bank has opted for uses SQL data base and security features of SQL database are used to ensure data integrity.
Union Bank of India is using a scoring system based on credit scores evolved by credit information agencies. "We also give

Since the rural BPO will mainly cater to the incremental business from the urban areas, it may not have much of an impact on the continuing sustainabi

dashboard that monitors and congratulates better performers and motivates the slower ones," he says.
As much as 46% of the employees hold BA degrees, 35% BCom, 15% BSc and ]% each MA, MCom, MSc and MBA. "However, since most of them belong to the lowest strata of society, they had very harrowing experiences in taking up education and even in living a normal life. They had no background of English and would never have got jobs elsewhere," adds Durga Prasad.
WHY TIRUPATI?
Why was Tirupati chosen as a location? Explains Rajan: "The concept of a rural BPO necessarily requires the location to be a small town with close proximity to the rural areas. The town should be small enough to attract the rural youth, but have sufficient infrastructure to provide broadband connectivity and continuous power supply. One of the main reasons for locating it at Tirupati was the excellent support that we received from EGMM in identifying and preparing educated unemployed rural youths for our selection process. They also verify the background and integrity of the candidates which accelerates our recruitment process."
Rajan is very happy to replicate this model in any other states in India. "However, dedicated support from the concerned state governments and an assurance of steady flow of processing business is critical for the viability of such ventures," he adds.
Rajan is also very emphatic when he says that migrating work from urban BPOs to rural sites is not an issue since there are enough alternative employment opportunities for the trained BPO staffer in urban areas, which is demonstrated in the high staff turnover levels in such BPOs. Since the rural BPO will mainly cater to the incremental business from the urban areas, it may not have much of an impact on the continuing sustainability of the Metro based BPOs.
CHALLENGES IN SETTING UP A RURAL BPO
ADFC faced several chaJlenges in locating the BPO in a
remote town like Tirupati and making it functional. First of aJl, it was difficult to persuade software vendors and service staff to provide ongOing support in remote locations. Transportation and instaJiation of the hardware was also a tedious exercise. Secondly, connectivity was a major issue. While BSNL connectivity was readily available, it was important to have a second service proVider for business continuity. Lastly, it was essential that a steady and continuous supply of electric power was available to ensure that the work in the BPO is not interrupted by unscheduled power cuts.
To mitigate the above constraints, the bank's IT team
persuaded its
software and
hardware vendors
to go to Tirupati to set up the required infrastructure for the BPO. They also persuaded Bharati Airtel to start offering its services to help the BPO build its redundancy. While power supply had
been erratic, the BPO managed with gensets, though it is more expensive.
Explaining how sustainable and economically viable this business model has been, Rajan says the work that is getting migrated to the rural areas wiJl be delivered at a cheaper cost over a period of time. Besides, the quality of work will be at least equal to, if not better than the output from urban areas. Besides, the reduced attrition level is a major attraction to shift BPOs to semi urban towns.
Rajan feels that the rural BPO model is simple enough for other banks to set up similar ventures in rural and semi urban towns. "This is an idea which I wiJl be happy to share with others who have a similar vision."
CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBLITY
He says a rural BPO is not only a sustainable business model, but it is one of the best alternatives to develop the rural economy. "It proVides steady alternative income growth for the rural population, which is otherwise largely dependent on the vagaries of nature."
He is very optimistic that this initiative, to a great extent, could trigger a revolution to restrict the migration of rural people into urban areas and pre-empt a demographic disaster. Besides proViding jobs to the educated unemployed in the rural areas, such ventures can also prevent large scale migration of rural populace to the urban areas. [n addition, this will facilitate setting up of infrastructure in rural and semi-urban areas like roads, power supply, broadband connectivity, etc.
"I am happy to share with you that I have enquiries from at least two state governments on starting similar projects and ready to replicate this venture. The very fact that this initiative has stimulated similar thought process in high places itself is a very rewarding feeling."

The candidates are generally those who have completed theirgraduation but not been able to land a job due to their inability to compete with their cit

is now more than six months since the BPO has started functioning in full steam and it has around 650 employees working in two shifts handling tasks like data capturing, retail loan processing, credit card application processing, etc. The current BPO strength is fUlly engaged in meeting the needs of HDFC Bank but Rajan is confident the operations can be easily scaled up to meet requirements if needed. "We can easily scale up the operations to accommodate more than 1,800 people over three shifts if there are assured business flows," says Rajan, adding "Mutual funds, i nsu rance com pan ies, telecom and other service providers have identical activities, which can be easily migrated to this BPO."
Rajan spearheaded the initiative after a chance encounter with a small BPO at Puttaparthi in rural Andhra Pradesh, run by a band of dedicated entrepreneurs employing a few rural youths from nearby villages. However, he found that this experimental venture was languishing for want of adequate business flows and he arranged to divert some of the processes from the bank to the BPO. "The dedication and commitment of these rural youths inspired a thought in me as to how some of the routine processes of the bank in the metro cities can be diverted to support rural employment in a much larger scale, says Rajan. "It was further strengthened when I met with a dynamic lady called Meera Shenoy at Hyderabad who was working with a team of dedicated Gas in the interiors of Andhra Pradesh with an identical vision. She heads the Employment Generation and Marketing Mission (EGMM) at the department of rural development of the Andhra Pradesh government, mainly identifying and training deserving poor youth from rural areas to take up appropriate employment. We decided to set up the rural BPO at Tirupati where daughters and sons of farmers, laborers, carpenters, weavers, etc, from nearby Villages could be employed. The candidates are generally those who have completed their graduation but
not been able to land a job due to their inability to compete with their city brethren who get better exposures."
Rajan says
convincing and
getting the approval of the bank's CEO and the members of the board on
experimenting with this initiative was not at all difficult, since they immediately appreciated the tremendous value addition that this initiative can have in uplifting rural economy.
The nature of the work of the employees of the BPO largely involves ca ptu ri ng customer data from scanned images of application forms and sending the data back to the central servers in Mumbai. "Since scanned images could be sent over broadband lines and brought back to the central server
as encrypted data files, we could mange the entire activity without any time loss of turnaround time for the customers and without compromising data security," adds Rajan.
INITIAL EXPERIENCES
Durga Prasad, a senior banker, who heads the operations of the BPO at Tirupati, adds: "The boys and girls who joined this BPO are seeing an office environment for the first time in their life. In fact, during the initial days, I was puzzled to see many of them wearing warm woolen clothes despite the humid weather at Tirupati, before I realized that most of them were not accustomed to spending eight hours in an air-conditioned enclosure!" He adds the BPO job has brought in dignity and respect for them and many of them have been able to get rid of their family debts, start educating their siblings and prOVide an enhanced lifestyle to their families. The status of being a BPO employee has also helped some of the girls to get married into respectable families.
As much as 54% of the staff employed in the rural BPO is girls.
Many of them are destitutes, orphans and widows and the BPO has given them an impetus to lead a life of dignity. They work in two shifts, but Durga Prasad manages the shift allocations in such a way that the girls are able to leave office before dusk.
Meera Shenoy, who heads EGMM, says the organization was associated with HDFC Bank even before setting up the BPO and the experience was such that it had no hesitation whatsoever to the idea of a rural BPO. "We readily undertook the initial training aspects, tailormaking it to the needs of the BPO," she adds.
She says three factors influenced her thinking while being associated with HDFC Bank: (i) the impeccable credentials of the bank, (ii) the project is to help rural youth and (iii) it creates job opportunities in the local area instead of the youths having to migrate to cities.
Shenoy says: "This is one of the best examples of public­private partnership and it is a worthwhile model since it aims to create job opportunities for the rural and tribal youths in their area of residence. We have received enquiries from other state governments on this pattern."
She adds: "On our part, we have been trying to impart tailormade training to the youths, as per the requirement of the employers. As an organization EGMM is one of the largest job creators for rural youth globally, having secured jobs to as many as 225,000 youths so far."
TRAINING REQUIREMENTS
Besides the initial grooming support from EGMM, the BPO gives extensive training to the youngsters in handling computers, using software applications and in understanding basic banking products before they are put on the actual job. Durga Prasad says it takes about six months for them to become reasonably skilled and productive. "Each of the employee works with realistic targets in terms of productivity and quality of output. There is a

Mascot of a Generation

Dhanamma is an amazing example of women getting empowered. She has been a girl with fierce determination and will power to make it big. In spite of stiff resistance from her mother, this second daughter of a shepherd father and farm laborer mother from one of the villages bordering Tirupati managed to graduate. Dhanamma is now an agent at the rural BPO.

When two management students from Vignana ]yothi Institute of Management, Hyderabad, Aparna Krishnan and Sirisha, met her as part of a case study on the rural BPO project, Dhanamma recollected her days when she walked miles together to graze goats, helpless at not being able to go to college. Her mother thought it was worthless attending college instead of helping her with her field work and household chores. She went to college to only write her examinations. She took a BA in political science and when she listened to a presentation by EGMM at a meeting of a SHG, she was convinced that her dreams can be fulfilled by taking up the training at EGMM. She persuaded her father and joined the 45--day training. She was later absorbed by ADFC at the BPO.

"The 45 days at EGMM changed me completely from a shepherdess to a woman ready to be employed in a swank, air conditioned corporate office," she tells the management students proudly displaying her ID card. She feels that the training has been the best part of her life as she has acqUired English speaking skills and can manage the work like any other urban girl.

Dhanamma stays in a hostel at Tirupati as her home is in Patagunta, which is 40 kms away from Tirupati. She sends Rs 2,700 every month to her parents. She complains that many people in her village waste their time doing nothing productive and getting into bad habits like gambling.

Aparna and Sirisha write in their case study: "Dhanamma is a mascot of whole generation of women fighting their way to getting educated and going beyond their borders. She is the first girl to get graduated from her village and the first girl to go out of her village to earn a living. This determination is now spreading in the whole village. On her way to her home lots of kids come up to her to greet her. She says that all of them wish to work like her in the City."
recruited from villages around the temple town, from the lowest rungs of the economic strata. These youngsters (many of them walking down or cycling to the office covering anywhere between 5 and 15 kms daily), are quite a contrast to the motor cycle riding call center executives of the cities.
"We started the Rural BPO more as a corporate social responsibility with the intention of proViding employment opportunities to the rural youth rather than as
a cost-cutting initiative," says A. Rajan, group head - Operations of HDFC Bank and a director on the board of ADFC. "The cost aspect was considered to the extent that the bank should not be spending more than what it was incurring for similar activities in the metros. This is important, since it is pointless to start an initiative unless it is economically viable and self-sustaining in the long run. Since the BPO is intended to proVide job opportunities closer to the rural employees' residences, the bank had to necessarily locate it in a remote town away from the metros, thus incurring a higher cost on leasing appropriate bandwidth. However, this cost is expected to be offset by the fact that infrastructure costs like rentals and wage bills are lower at remote towns, compared with those in a metro," he adds.
There is also another significant advantage.
In rural areas, there is very little attrition as the youngsters, while working in the BPO, can continue to support their family business as well. So, there is a double benefit for them and they are less likely be tempted by the better salary prospects in the metros.
Rajan agrees: "There is negligible attrition.
This saves the BPO significant re-training expenses, which is otherwise incurred by the metro based BPOs facing a sizeable turnover. The few resignations that were seen in the Tirupati BPO were due to the fact that some of the female staff who got married had to re-locate. There were also a few cases where the ladies had to resign for compelling family responsibilities. This was anticipated since the BPO predominantly employs a larger

MARATHON FUTUREX ..

The biggest challenge in Mumbai, the country's financial capital today is the availability of well-defined and well maintained and safe business parks. Construction of state-of-the-art secure structures, built with keeping in mind the seamless functioning of the financial institutions are a must for Mumbai to continue its status as the financial hub of the nation. With growing number of Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI) companies in the country's financial capital, the need for buildings with modern infrastructure, catering specifically to these sectors is a must.
The Marathon Group, through its upcoming project Marathon Futurex at Lower Parel, the emerging financial hub ofMumbai, has made an endeavor to fulfill requirements of several such BFSI aspirants to set up their new office in Mumbai.
It was the Marathon Group, which with its several unique commercial and residential projects like Marathon NextGen Innova, Marathon Omega, Marathon NextGen Era etc have already converted Lower Parel from decaying chawls and dead mills to the one of the financial hub of the country's financial
capital with its prestigious projects,
catering to the need of this growing city.
Addressing the need for spacious business parks with a positive ambience, Marathon Futurex, at Lower Parel is one such project in the area being developed by the Marathon Group as one of the most favored tomorrow's busi ness destination for the BFSI companies.
Marathon Futurex is "A" class IT Park overlooking Arabian sea and Mahalaxmi racecourse and offers floor plates from 30,000 sq. ft. to 70,000 sq. ft. and is designed to accommodate more than 900 cars. Impressive and grand centrally air conditioned entrance lobby, lush green sky gardens, advanced building management system, Electric sub-station, DG back up for common areas, broadband connectivity, advanced security with CCTV make this future Green building an ideal business destination.
Centrally located at the junction of Lower Parel and Curry road, Marathon Futurex is easily accessible by all modes of transport­connected to major bus routes, flyovers and Bandra-Worli sea link. Futu rex is the only business destination at a one minute walking distance from Lower Parel and Currey Road railway stations. Proposed skywalk between these two railway station will further ease the connectivity. Air-conditioned monorail services between Jacob circle in South Bombay and Chemburon harbour line will also add up to the reach as the proposed on-route sration is close ro the site along N .M.Joshi Marg. Junction free VT-Sion expressway will facilitate the faster connectivity between central and harbour suburbs
with the central business destination. Upcoming Mumbai Trans Harbour sea linkwill not only bring New Mumbai and adjoinlTlg suburbs closer to Lower Parel but also connect Pune. Concentration of high gear service sector organizations like Peninsula Corpora < Park, Phoenix Mills, Kamala Mills, five star hotels like ITC ar J Fo \' Season's and entertainment outlets at High Street Phoenix In th vicinity itself had become the location advantage ot thL M r rho Futurex. Upcoming hi-end Shangri-La hotel at Phocn ix will FL , , hospitality to new level.
Another reason for Lowet Parel being the preferred destinauor s by the business leaders as compared to the upmarket Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) is, that the latter lacks social infrastructure and ItS neither close to Bandra nor to Kurla railway stations.
The project, being developed in the Mafatlal Mill land compound will host more than 15 landscaped gardens by international architect from Singapore and will feature Drop offlevel adorned with water feature signage, water bodies, water spout sculpture, timber deck,
fountain feature, bamboo garden, garden plaza, cascad ing garden ete.
Marathon is the only developer offering this kind of project in the middle of the Lower Parel business district, offering commercial space through leave and license and outright sales to the customers, that too as per their requirements.
As the demand for commercial space is growing in Mumbai, the commercial capital of the country has seen growing in all the directions. In the current scenarIO, centrally located places such as Lower Parel turned out an extended central business district.
Group's one such landmark project called NextGen lnnova offering independent business spaces starting from 2000 sq. ft. with scalability option upto one lac sq. ft. is located opposite Peninsula Corporate Park in Lower Parel Destination for brands like Anchor,
Sundaram BNP Paribas, HDFC, Dawnay Day AV, STCl Securities, Evergreen Logistics, Armstrong WI! Pvt. Ltd. to name a few, NextGen I nnova is dotted with most conducive features like grand entrance lobby, capsule elevators, hi-tech security, tree lined walkways, independent car park building for more than 500 cars, tennis court and modern clubhouse comprising of gymnasium, swimming pool, squash court, aerobic studio etc on 5" level. This project was awarded as the "Best Commercial Project of the Year" -2006 by Accommodation Times.
The Group is actively involved in High-rise residences, Corporate & IT parks, Retail, Townships and SEZs.

Prepaid Technology from FIS

ecently, in the UK, two prepaid cards were launched - one, 'Cash Manager' for adults looking to budget in times of tightened spending, and the other, 'Load & Go', aimed at teens looking for a safer alternative to cash and who want to shop online but may do so only by borrowing their parents' cards.
Imagine a card for teenagers, age 13 and up.
With this card, parents can teach children to manage money. Children may only purchase goods that are 'allowed' e.g., the card can be programmed to bar a purchase at an adult internet site or at a liquor store. Plus, the card can be given to children who study and live far away where spending cannot be watched. The company that launched them, 02, is UK's leading mobile company.
A TELCO LAUNCHING PREPAID CARDS?
Analysts feel that a teko can bring a fresh approach to financial services. The card is in a way a step toward integrating the wallet and the mobile phone. Also, majority of prepaid programs have been developed by building a customer base. This telco comes with millions of existing customers with which it communicates regularly. Marketing the program to these customers will not be as costly as reaching out to new customers. While different business models may drive a tel co to launch Prepaid, reduction of customer churn also makes a reason for entering this business.
IN A RECESSIONARY GLOBAL MARKET?
u.s. data shows that spending on credit and debit cards have decreased in the last quarter of 2008. While the total appears to be up on a yearly basis, statistics point toward reduced spending in many countries in 2009. Thus, budget-consciousness and use of cash to control expenditures will reflect in consumer behavior, implying, increased preference in the usage of ATM and prepaid cards over credit cards.
PREPAID OPPORTUNITIES IN INDIA
The Indian psyche is well versed with concepts like small­value, pre-loaded and prepaid. Majority of Indian mobiles are on prepaid plans and small packets of Lays or sachets of L'Oreal are a rage in India. Though on a higher value note, the prepaid travel card has caught the Indian consumers' fancy and a growing number of Indians opt for a one-time or reloadable card instead of forex or TCs. Considering the huge increase in outbound travel (business and leisure), this is an area of growth. However, scope still remains for understanding the complete prepaid proposition. Education by technology providers to banks and end-users is the way forward. Technologically, India
is ready to accept many - if not all - of the following: in Consumer - Gift Card, Merchant Gift Card, Teen/Student Card, Personal Reloadable Card, Travel Cards, Money Transfer Cards; in Commercial - Payroll Card, Incentive Card, Corporate Gift Card, Promotion Card, Catastrophe Card, Insurance ClaimCard, Employee Benefits, Employee Reimbursement; and in Government - Court Ordered Payments, Benefit Disbursements, Unemployment Payetc.
As critical as the decision to go prepaid, is the bank's technology partner. An ideal provider should have a CV that reads:
a) Industry expert with a background in banking and financial services
b) Core Competency & depth of experience - a pioneer, present & committed to India; IT is never reinvented!
c) Size-big processor, large R&D spend, world-wide operations for bandwidth, reach and efficiency
d) Customer Support - local, global, telephone and internet
One company that fits the above description is Fidelity National Information Services or FIS. This USD 5.14 billion company invested U5$30 Million in its prepaid technology in 2008. A pioneer and leader, FlS was world's first prepaid-only processor, in business for more than 10 years. As world's largest, PIS is a full service provider with a multitude of offerings. Its total cards on file today are 192 million with a value load of 11 billion USD, equal to 25 percent market share globally. With over 40 years in banking technology, FIS has been global #1 in banking in the FinTech 100 rankings for four consecutive years and 95% of FIS revenues are derived from services to the BFSI segment.
Present since 1998, FIS has 4000+ employees in seven centers in India, serving the banking and financial services industry. Of that, 250+ constitute its Prepaid Team with expertise in implementation, operations, technology and live support to consumers. Shrihari Bhat, Country Manager, FIS India, says, "Prepaid is poised for tremendous growth and acceptance in India and banks and NBFCs must cash in on this opportunity."
Looking back, in recessionary year, a teko launches prepaid cards in the UK; in India, banks brace up for prepaid products; leading technology providers offer their knowhow in the market and the writing on the wall favours prepaid over credit cards. To conclude, if you are a product manager or marketer, you may want to finalize your own prepaid product and launch it soon. Raksha Bandhan has heralded onset of the festival season. Gifts, bonuses, incentive payouts, weddings, holidays etc., are all waiting for you to capitalize on. Prepaid may not just be a trend. It could actually help you max your 2009 performance targets!

lOB seeks to secure its internet gateway

ndian Overseas Bank is planing to secure ih internet gateway and has sought bids for supply of security systems including firewall, intrusion detection and prevention, content filtering, gateway antivirus and URL filter of CYBEROAM brand and SSL VI' appliance. The systems are to be installed at the bank's DR site in Hyderabad. The bank intends to have a solution that can support administration via secured communication over HTITS, SSH and from Console, capable of export and import of configuration backup including user objects, support Route (Layer 3)/transparent mode (Layer 2) and is capable of integration with Windows NTLM, Active Directory, LDAP, Radius or Local Database for user authentication. The proposed solution should also support
Dynamic DNSconfiguration, provie utilization graph on daily, weekly, yearly for total or individuallSP linl real time data transfer/bandwidtl done by individual user/ip/applic as the anti-virus solution sough intends to have an integrated soh has webcoast checkmark certi antivirus/anti spyware, work as , and support scanning for SMTP, FTp, HTTP, FTP over HTTP protoCi content filtering solution

ca Bank has invited bids from prospective vendors to implent c'Jre banking solution in the five regional rural banks sponsored hy it on an ASP model. The five sponsored RRBs are Jaipur Thar Gramin Bank, Kalinga Gramya Bank, Bihar Kshetriya Gramin Bank, l'aschim Banga Gramin Bank and Mahakausal Kshetriya Gramin Bank, which together had around 800 branches in Rajasthan, Orissa, Bihar, West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh. The bank wants the proposed CBS to be deployed on an ASP model and it would award a total contract for the entire services, to be executed on a turnkey basis. The bank has also laid a schedule for implementation
- minimum 25% of each RRB to be covered by CBS t 2009, the next 500,1) branches to be covered by Septeml 100% of the branches to be covered by September 2 view to ensure uniformity in the technology platform business processes at all the five different RRBs, bE proofing against any regulatory consolidation requirem the immediate, the bank has preferred Finacle solutio Technologies. Besides, the bank itself is using Finac feels, would facilitate experience based technical, mal traini

yndicate Bank is planning to implement prepaid card management solution on an ASP model for cards issued by the bank in affiliation with VISA/MasterCard and for use at VISA/ MasterCard enabled ATMs and POS terminals and other shared networks of the bank. The bank would prefer a solution provider, which would have its own switch and application host in place for authorization, authentication and settlement with secure web access to the bank's card center at Bangalore, hank branches all over India and customers / pre-paid cardholders JCfOSS the world. The various cards issued by the bank include branded gift card, payroll card, prepaid purchasing card, travel card, campus card, virtual prepaid cards and lenslon cards. The bank will implement the project on a revenue haring model under which the net revenue generated from he busi!less shall be shared between the bank and the selected
vendor on a determined ratio, while the VISA/MasterC and other third party certification charges would be b, bank. It will be the sole responsibility of the selectee provide pre-paid card management and also offer services in pre-paid card solution including back-el of switch maintenance / authorization, network ill,
authorization, MIS,
services and dispute Besides, the vendor Sf hosted services with infrastructure for aut
authentication and
of transactions. The should include fun like, interchange accou necessary reporting tools management / risk management tools / Fraud Manag Anti Money Laundering (AML) Tools with web enabl Branches / Card Centre of the Bank. ng support to the RRBs from the sponsor bank.
is expected to be webcoas certified and should be capable of integrating with Ie instead of querying to database hosted somewhere on and be a standalone HTrp proxy.