Cheques and phone calls are so yesterday

In major metros, sending an SMS for a gas refill is as efficient and reliable as getting a one time password for card-not-present transactions.

For a small premium you can even specify the preferred time of day or day of week for deliveries. Income tax/property tax/water dues, phone and electricity bills, and credit card payments can be made online. Just takes a few seconds. If your bank's website does not list these options, go to payee websites. Your tax return, too, can simply be filed online.

Finally, by banking with your broker, you can input orders directly into the exchanges, with real time market information, and instantaneously modify or revoke orders as often as you like, until the time they are actually executed. Another big plus is that you don't have to idle a balance to fund possible transactions. A banker-broker like HDFC Bank-HDFC Securities who provides a single seamless window for your bank, trade and demat accounts marks a lien only when you enter a buy transaction, and vacates it the moment you revoke or modify the order. And sales proceeds arrive on the dot. In fact, you can place buy orders against sales the moment a transaction goes through, days before the money actually comes in.

>ranade@thehindu.co.in

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