ICICI Sec moves to stop fraud by sub-brokers

ICICI Securities will have additional checks and balances, if required by the system, to stop any manipulative transactions by a sub-broker with a mala fide intent to dupe the clients after some of its investors complained of losing money and their securities in Bangalore.

“Our system is fool-proof and records every transaction by clients with proper documentation. However, we will definitely look at putting up some checks and balances to stop the recurrence of such incidents of the kind that happened in Bangalore as and when required,” Subir Saha, executive vice-president of ICICI Securities, said.

Earlier, some of the investors had claimed that sub-broker Rajiv Bansal, who was a sub-broker affiliated to ICICI Securities in Bangalore, had duped them of money and securities. The investors had staged a protest in front of ICICI Bank in the city centre against the alleged negligence on the part of ICICI Securities.

 

Subsequently, ICICI Securities had gone to the city civil court and secured an injunction, restraining any protest outside its premises in the city. “We are reaching out to all our investors and are appealing to them to come to us directly to take any corrective action in case of genuine grievances,” Saha said.

The brokerage house has also registered a complaint against Rina Bansal, the wife of deceased Rajiv Bansal, and other unknown persons against alleged receipt of cash from investors. “There were complains of many bilateral transactions between investors and Rina Bansal in cash. So, we have registered a complaint against Rina Bansal for investigation into these complains as no transaction is allowed on a cash basis,” he added.

In the meantime, doubts have also been raised about the genuineness of complaints from investors.

“Of the 61 people who protested against the securities firm, we found out that only 38 people were holding accounts with us. It also came to our notice that post-2007, both Bansal and these clients had minimal trading activity. However, we had requested them to give us written complains and we had only received eleven of them till now,” Saha said.

As per the initial investigations, there was no loss of money or securities to investors. However, we will conduct further investigations to address any genuine investors’ grievances, he added.