Here’s an example for how desperate banks are to lay their hands on your money:

Open a Fixed Deposit online and get an exclusive HSBC umbrella for FREE!

Opening a Fixed Deposit this monsoon season couldn’t make more sense than this. You can now get an exclusive HSBC umbrella when you choose to open a Fixed Deposit through HSBC Internet Banking.

How much lamer can marketing get? I’d rather earn an extra 1% interest on my Fixed Deposit rather than crave for an exclusive umbrella. To HSBC: It honestly doesn’t make any sense to me.

The details of the umbrella on offer:

This classic umbrella comes with a wooden shaft and curved wooden handle, and unfurls to a full span of 58 cms, which will certainly make you stand apart from the crowd. You’ll be wishing for rain just to show it off!

Would you ever embarrass yourself this way?

The devil in you might be urging you to pull a fast one on HSBC by opening multiple Fixed Deposits resulting in multiple umbrellas being delivered to your doorstep. Not so fast mates, because:

The number of free HSBC umbrellas are limited to one per customer only, regardless to the number of Fixed Deposits opened by that customer.

Let me know if you do pick up one of these.