I visited a branch yesterday. Had a meeting with their manager and she called a senior regional manager who was visiting as well as another investment manager. They first interviewed me for a while before deciding if I was a suitable customer. Even asked me if I had ever traveled to Cuba, Iran, Syria etc or intended to travel! Completely ridiculous of course. They claim it is due to US sanctions and they don’t want people who have business interests in those countries. Asked me whether I received any cash income (black money) as well! They seem rather paranoid.
Anyway, they want a cheque of at least 40 lakhs to open the Premier account and would apply for the card at the same time. They would, of course, prefer a higher initial amount like at least 1 crore. Demat balance would be counted but, they do not have a trading facility for stocks! You can transfer your existing holdings to them and hold them but if you need to trade, you would have to transfer them to another depository to sell! You can buy and sell MFs with them though. If I decide to go with them, I would just invest 40 lakhs in MFs through them and be done with it. They seem fairly confident of getting the card approved once you become a customer but advised that the credit limit would depend upon the relationship value. S&C had said the same as well.