A new platinum Evara range for this wedding season

Platinum Bridal Jewellery for the modern bride and groom

Post By : IJ News Service On 31 March 2016 12:57 PM
Titan Company Limited (TCL) has been operating the Golden Harvest (GHS) (11+1) and Swarna Nidhi (SNS) jewellery purchase schemes for its brand Tanishq for many years now. Through both these schemes, lakhs of account holders have been able to acquire precious Tanishq jewellery for various occasions. In the newly enacted Companies Act 2013 which became a law on 1st April 2014, certain new rules were introduced, specifically under Explanation to Rule 2 (1) (b) of the Companies (Acceptance of Deposit) Rules 2014, which came into effect on 1st April 2014, which appeared to bring such schemes also under the definition of Public Deposits. If applicable, these rules limited the return that companies could offer deposit holders to 12% and also capped the total amount of deposits within 25% of their net worth. %% Even though it was not clear whether these rules applied to the jewellery purchase schemes (they were clearly not deposits as TCL understood them to be under the old Companies Act 1956), as a matter of abundant caution, TCL suspended all new enrolments from 20th April 2014, while continuing to accept instalment payments for existing accounts. On 1st May 2014, TCL met the officials in the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) seeking clarifications on the same. The officials asked TCL to place that request in writing so that they could examine whether these rules were applicable to jewellery purchase schemes. TCL did so immediately, through a letter dated 2nd May 2014. In a meeting sought by TCL with MCA officials on 23rd June 2014, it was finally clarified by them that the rules were indeed applicable to all jewellery purchase schemes, and such schemes were now being covered for safeguarding the interests of the public. %% In this context, TCL would like to state the following to all the account holders of Golden Harvest and Swarna Nidhi and to all its customers in general: TCL welcomes this regulation at the conceptual level and will work with the rest of the industry to request the MCA some refinements to the rules which will help protect the public interest, while simultaneously helping the industry. TCL has had a spotless track record on its schemes. As a matter of abundant caution and prudence, TCL has always kept, in liquid assets with scheduled banks and others, an amount which exceeded the total advances collected through the jewellery purchase schemes. This is in addition to the inventory of gold jewellery that TCL carries which covers the advances over 3 times. %% However, TCL is now constrained to comply with this new law immediately and is required to wind down the level of “deposits” (as these are termed now) in its current form. This means that TCL is constrained to stop accepting any further instalments from the existing account holders, with immediate effect. To make it fair to all its Golden harvest and Swarna Nidhi account holders, TCL, has designed a fair redemption offer, the details of which are available with the stores. n the event where the account holder does not close the account before 31st August 2014, TCL, in order to ensure compliance to the new rules, will refund the amount received and post the cheque to the address provided in the account passbook. The account holders are required to bring the original passbook and id proof for redemption of the account. %% TCL apologises to its account holders for this sudden development, but is unable to do anything about it since the law of the land has changed. TCL also assures all its account holders that it will soon come out with a new jewellery purchase scheme that will make it convenient for account holders to purchase jewellery, while complying with the current law.

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