Not Greed

This is with reference to Small investor and his greed by Pradipta Bagchi (BS 29/5/97). I am an investor who put a part of my post retirement benefits in CRB Capital Markets Ltd (CRB) and is in danger of losing the money completely.

CRB has not offered any rate of interest vastly higher than what is offered by several Non-banking Finance Companies (NBFC) . The rate of interest for one year cumulative worked out to 15 per cent.

The reason for depositing with CRB is it being assessed the second largest NBFC in the country with financial business in several activities. It is rated `A Grade by CARE which is backed by IDBI, a public financial institution. Besides, the activities of the NBFCs are under the control of the regulatory agency such as SEBI, RBI and Company Law Board. If the aim of my putting the money in the fixed deposit is greed, I would have gone to small scale money lenders who are providing 36 per cent to 40 per cent interest on short term deposits with the complete risk to the investor. Instead I chose a registered company which is controlled by the regulatory authorities of the Government of India. Kindly inform me what are the other means available for an investor to assess the safety of a company in putting the deposit.

Where is greed in such a case? If the government banks like State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda etc lend money to CRB Capital Markets Ltd without a proper scrutiny and illegally, are the investors responsible? If the security bonds against which CRB collected crores of money are not secured against any asset and the government regulatory body has not cared to check it, are the small investors responsible?