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| The city-based Asit C Mehta Investment Intermediates Ltd last week became the first domestic brokerage house to get itself rated by Crisil's new broker grading service with a BQ-2 grading, the second highest grading on a five-point scale ranging from BQ-1 to BQ-5, with BQ-1 being the highest.
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| Industry officials expect more brokerage houses to join the grading bandwagon, as internationally - especially in the US and Europe - grading is being widely accepted. "Grading will help stock broking firms to benchmark themselves with the best in the industry, besides becoming a mechanism to communicate to potential customers and clients that the brokerage house is reasonably safe to deal with," said C J George, managing director, Geojit Financial Services, which is open to the idea of getting itself graded.
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| Tarun Bhatia, head of financial sector ratings, Crisil, said the grading agency is getting a good response from a lot of broking firms for the newly-launched broker grading product.
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| Currently, Crisil is the only agency that provides this service in India.
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| "With Indian financial markets getting integrated to the global markets, brokerage houses have to go for grading for getting investors' confidence," Regi Jacob, managing director of JRG Securities, which is taking up the grading issue at its next board meeting, said.
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According to Darshan Mehta, chief executive officer of Anagram Stock Broking, grading would help brokerage houses to build up credibility for retail investors. He said Anagram is looking to use the broker grading service provided by Crisil.
Rajiv Phadke, executive director of Angel Broking, said, "We have had a preliminary round of discussions with Crisil about getting ourselves graded. A senior official of IL&FS Investsmart, said, "In the near future, yes, certainly we are considering grading. It cannot be ruled out."
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| Though internationally grading is being used by broking firms, in India, this concept has just got off only now. "There is a lot more transparency when you are graded by a third party," said Natrajan T S, senior vice-president at Asit C Mehta. With the company planning major expansion of its network through the franchisee route, officials said grading would help the company to get an immediate response from clients.
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The grading by Crisil is an opinion on the quality of operations, risk management, customer research and services, client relations, systems and procedures, senior management quality and balance sheet strength of broking firms.
Though broker grading has not been made mandatory by the Sebi, it is up to the brokerage if it wants to get itself graded voluntarily, said Crisil's Bhatia. |
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