Author: Jagoinvestor

I am Jagoinvestor Admin

Why Investors are from Mars and Financial Advisors are from Venus

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

This article is a must read for every investor and financial advisor. The best part of this article is that it is about YOU (the investor) and it is about them (financial advisors). I and Nandish always discuss how financial advisors cant live without investors and vice-versa, but still their world are very different from each other. Both Investors and Advisors think very differently. It is extremely important for both to understand each other’s world and that is what today’s article is all about.

Right now I think advisors and investors both share love and hate relationship and the world of investment is structured in such a way, that they are inseparable. Even if they want, they can’t avoid having interaction or association with each other. Their thought process are at times very different, they view the game of investment from completely different place. Just imagine How magical the world can become if these two entities engage powerfully?. What can happen if they come on the same page and start to respect each other’s world. Such oneness can spread prosperity all over.

Before I write further, I want to make one thing clear that the world right now is full of good and bad financial advisors and investors both.

Step into Each Other World

Unless both Investor and Advisor step into each other world, its really not possible for help and co-exist with each other in a happy way from long term basis. This article is like ticket for both advisor’s and investors to step into each other’s world, it is an opportunity to embrace each other’s world and to accept their mistakes or the damage that they have done to each other’s world.

From last few months, We have closely observing and interacting with both advisor’s and investors community and have come-up with some differentiation. Some of the observations, you might agree and some of you might not. No need to react to them, but just see if you agree to them or not.

Investors and Advisors difference

The intention of this article is to help you get in touch with each other’s world. Let us know what you think about this ?

Get your Income Tax Return Prepared by TRP at Home for FREE

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

Do you know that Income Tax Department offers your tax filing services at your door step with help of a trained and certified professional who can help you with tax filing and in many cases totally FREE of cost or at a small fees ? Let me introduce to the concept of TRPS (Tax Return Preparer Scheme) . Just like you have CA , you have something called as TRP or “Tax Return Preparer” trained by Income Tax Department for helping a tax payer in preparing and filing his income tax returns.

TRPS Tax return preparer scheme

What does a Tax Return Preparer (TRP) do ?

Mainly a TRP (Tax Return Preparer) helps a person to file his income tax returns. But lets see it in detail. Mainly a TRP shall

  • Prepare the return with due diligence;
  • Affix his signature on the return prepared by him;
  • Furnish the return with the Assessing Officer having the jurisdiction over the concerned assessee or to any other officer or agenc as may be directed by the Resource Centre with the approval of the Board;
  • Hand over a copy of the return to the person whose return is prepared and furnished by him;
  • Retain a copy of the acknowledgment of having furnished the return;
  • In respect of returns prepared and furnished by him during a month, maintain record of the following, namely
    • the name of assessees whose returns of income have been prepared and furnished by him during that month;
    • the permanent account number of such assessees;
    • assessment year;
    • date of furnishing the return;
    • acknowledgment number;
    • jurisdiction of the Assessing Officer;
    • amount of income declared in the return;
    • amount of tax payable;
    • amount of tax paid;
    • The fee charged and received by him

How to Find a TRP for yourself ?

Note that you can find a TRP in your home town or near you and he will visit your home/office and do all the work for you. You can visit this webpage and find out a TRP in your city. Or you can fix an appointment by filling up this form and a TRP will call you back to confirm your appointment. Even if you are doing everything on your own and want some help on filing your ITR (download this ITR FAQ guidebook), you can tax online help by asking question here and you will get back a call for help.

You can also call the helpline at 1800-10-23738 or mail to [email protected]

How much does a TRP charge as Fees ?

Now this is a little interesting and you should know this. Income Tax Department knows that most of the individuals do not file their ITR, because they have no idea how to do it and hence they either dont pay tax or just keep delaying it. So if someone knows that he will get help in filing the Income Tax Return (ITR) at his door step, the chances are many people will give it a try and hence the tax revenues will go up for Govt.

So Income Tax Department pays incentives to TRP for every returns filed by them. The amount of incentive depends on how many tax returns you have filed till now . If you are filing it for the first time, then the incentive is 3% of the tax paid . If a person is filing his returns for 2nd time in life, then its 2% incentive and for 3rd time its 1% . The higher incentive is given when someone files his return for the first time, because its his entry into tax filing world and generally people shy away from that first time only. A TRP will not get any incentive from govt if a person has already filed his returns more than 3 times. So in a nutshell, TRP’s incentive is directly linked to how many more tax payers they can add to the pool of tax payers.

Upto Rs 250 as charges 

However TRP’s are also allowed to charge upto Rs 250 from the income tax payer if he wants to . So some TRP’s charge the fees and some dont if they know that their incentive will cover their charges.

To explain to you with an example. Lets say if a person has paid Rs 20,000 as income tax. Then as an incentive , a TRP will be 3% of 20,000 – which is Rs 600 . Now a TRP might not charge you directly because he anyways is going to get it from govt, or if he feels – He can still ask your for some money as fees (subject to maximum Rs 250) .

However lets say your income tax payable is just Rs 2,000 , in which case 3% of 2,000 is just Rs 60 and surely the TRP will ask you for his fees . However its always a good idea for you to know how he is being paid so that you can tell him and get it negotiated. But I think if they do a good job, there is nothing wrong in paying their small fees , at the end they give you door step service.

Note that these TRP’s are actually trained by Income Tax Department with help of third party companies like NIIT. This step was taken by Income tax department to raise awareness level of tax filing among tax payers, to give them door step services and at the end help in generating self employed through this scheme. There are various TRP’s who have filed tax returns for thousands of individuals and now serve a big client base.

3 reasons why you enjoyed Pocket money more than your Salary !

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

Just put your hand on your heart and ask yourself what did you enjoy more! – Your Pocket Money which you used to get or your current Salary? I have asked this simple question to many people and the majority of them said “Pocket Money”. Yes, that is the answer I have got!.

That small amount that we used to receive from our parents or guardians was managed very well by us. We had very little knowledge about money or anything in life, but still, we were highly effective and careful with our pocket money, compared to what we are today with our salary or overall financial life. A lot of you might be giving pocket money to your kids or to some family members, just see how effectively they are with managing money. Here are 9 tips to make your kids respect money

Pocket Money vs Salary

Why we enjoyed our pocket money compared to Salary?

Here are some of the reasons why we enjoyed and took care of pocket money in a much better way than our salary today are as follows.

Reason 1#: You were so excited to receive it

The amount was not important but we were excited to receive the pocket money that we use to get. When you receive salary you feel – “That idiot is paid more than me, this company really does not care for me, I am really underpaid”. All these conversations inside your mind actually kill your excitement. You are unable to enjoy the money that comes into your life and obviously you can’t manage what you are not very excited about. As kids we never compared, we loved what we got, we were so content. We would put a small amount in our piggy bank and would make the most out of the money that we received. The pocket money was a GIFT!

Reason # 2: We were absolutely clear on what we will do with our pocket money

When the mind is clear it helps you take good decisions. Each month we knew what we will do with our pocket money. Before the pocket money came in our pocket, we knew where it’s going to go and how much!. We knew what to buy from our school or college canteen? How many movies we can watch? What to buy for our friends on their birthdays? It was making the most of the resources that got into our life.

Reason #3: We were accountable to someone

At the back of our minds, we knew that we are answerable to someone. We were accountable to the people who gave us pocket money. I remember buying stuff from my school canteen was so much fun. Today you are not accountable to anyone in your financial life. You start your SIPs without asking anyone and even stop or redeem them without asking anyone. I always suggest our financial coaching clients get accountable in their financial life. I ask them to see their spouse as their co-pilot. Imagine your wife won’t allow you to step into the house until you buy your term plan? Imagine your wife won’t allow you to enter the house till you don’t start your investments? Can you see the rigor it can bring into your overall financial life?

Pocket Money vs Salary – The Experiences and Feelings

When I get on a call with my clients, I keep asking them to share with me what kind of feeling they had when they got their pocket money and when they used to handle it and the same thing for the Salary they get. Here is the kind of responses I get from them. I am sure these would be true even for your case.

Pocket Money vs Salary Comparision

We want you all to do this exercise. Make a table and on one side write your experiences with your pocket money and on the other side your salary.

Here is an amazing sharing from a reader Pankaj Kapadia on his experience

When I had Rs.500/ in my pocket.in 1993…I used to feel that i was richest man on the earth. I could buy pepsi Rs.2.5/-, watch movie 15/-. have bhelpuri 3/- . Give party to all friends 100/- travel by bus Rs.2/- and still had funds. Now with 50k salary and 20k emi, 8k school fees, 5k maintainance , 20k groccery bills I am left with nothing. From life of my own now I have kids and wife to look after along with parents. I am responsible for 4 more financial dependents and hence all their dreams are mine. Their education, clothes, entertainment, illness are mine.

I agree pocket money gave me more satisfaction and salary less. I also admit my son with rs.100/month is much more happier than myself. It has more to do with carrying responsibility on my shoulder. My dad did for me and I must do it for my childrens

Conclusion

It is really not important how much money comes into your life what really matters is how happy you are to receive that amount and how grateful you are with that amount and what exactly you do with the financial resources that come in your life because that’s what is in your direct control. The experience we had while we received pocket money and our first salary was the same, we can choose to have similar experience all our life if we want to. Today the good news is that you are your own boss and the bad news is that YOU are your own boss in your financial life. Report to someone what you are doing and not doing in your financial life.

We have created 100moneyactions.com program so that you can be dedicate your 20 weeks for your financial life and complete almost all your financial life actions pending till date. This will really bring in a lot of accountability and will source your financial life with action. Do share how you are going to bring in a NEW level of excitement in managing your salary money the way you use to enjoy your pocket money.

This article is written by Nandish Desai.

10 tricks you can play to avoid unwanted marketing calls from Financial Companies

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

We all get unwanted calls related to credit card, insurance plans, newly launched policies, to upgrade our prepaid connection to post paid and god knows what all. I am generally regarded as a “super-cool” kind of guy within my group, these callers even try to break that good part of me. However, over the last few years, I have realized that no matter what you do they still come back to you with full dedication.

Tricks to Avoid Unwanted Marketing Calls

When I posted one simple trick on my facebook wall to get away from these calls, people connected to me reciprocated back with few other tricks which they try to shoo away marketing calls. Let me share those with you, so that next time you get that unwanted call asking you for making some investments or taking some policy or whatever reason, the chance they will leave you for next few months increases.

10 tricks to avoid Marketing Calls

Before I share those simple tricks with you (which are actually shared by others with me), I want you to know that the callers will only leave you when they come to know you are a “worthless guy” or you irritate them to the core.

Trick #1 – When you get a random call from banks, insurance companies for “a special offer only for you” . Tell them – “Sir, I lost my job yesterday” . You will instantly become UNTOUCHABLE for them .. and they will leave you in peace (for some months at least)

Trick #2 –  And if a life insurance agent calls I tell them my wife is a LIC advisor. In my case, he blacklists it immediately. There is no second call

Trick #3 – I just put my phone on loudspeaker mode and keep it aside…I put in an ok intermittently… finally the other person gets bored and hangs up…!!! Donno if the job lost trick would really help, but I would listen to the offer for sure !!!

Trick #4 –  I just say I’m not interested in marketing calls and request them to add my number to their blacklist. Again if someone calls me with same request I threaten them saying I am going to raise a complaint. This has worked well for me.

Trick #5 – Once I told them this is a police officer and a body is in front of me. have u killed him/her ?

Trick #6 –  I got a call from ICICI Bank selling credit cards. I denied and he asked for a reference. I gave him the mobile number of their CEO whose contact I had from a meeting 2 yrs back

Trick #7 – When they ask “How are you today?” Tell them! “I’m so glad you asked because no one these days seems to care, and I have all these problems; my arthritis is acting up, my eyelashes are sore, my dog just died.”

Trick #8 – If they say they’re John Doe from XYZ Company, ask them to spell their name. Then ask them to spell the company name. Then ask them where it is located. Continue asking them personal questions or questions about their company for as long as necessary.

Trick #9 – Tell the telemarketer you are busy at the moment and ask them if they will give you their HOME phone number so you can call them back. When the telemarketer explains that they cannot give out their HOME number, you say “I guess you don’t want anyone bothering you at home, right?” The telemarketer will agree and you say, “Now you know how I feel!”

Super Trick #10 – Tell them – “Wait a minute, can you hold on for 10 sec … and then pass it on to your 2 yrs old kid and ask him to talk to Uncle”.

Watch this youtube video below ( and you will get some good ideas on what to do?

Ashish shares his incident

Also it reminded me my interesting conversation with one of the tele caller, when she called me to ask if need Credit card from her bank .. I was going to railway station in my office cab and was getting bored in cab as it was not my usual cab route when this call came on my cell.. I listened and interacted very carefully what she had to say for trying to get me signed for credit card.. Replied all her queries about salary, work info, company info etc without allowing her to realize that all details were fake .. then she explained what all documentation was required in order to apply for this credit card.. I then asked her many questions which made her believe that i am really interested.. However she got shocked for my reply when she asked me: Sir, when shall i send my executive to collect all the documents?
I replied in very sweet and simple voice: Next year M’am :P .. She took a pause for few seconds before she realized what had happened, then she said thank you (in frustration) before disconnecting the call …

I was on speaker phone for this conversation and I did not realize that my colleagues were listening my conversation with this lady, until, they all burst in to laughter listening my reply for her last query ..

I made sure that i stretched this conversation for at least 40 mins so i could cover most part of my destination :) ..

Link

Pramod shares his daring incident

Once I get a call from ICICI to buy insurance (ULIP) though I did not want to buy but I was free so to pass time I asked the girl why should I buy insurance. Her reply was that you can save for my children and if something happens to you then your wife & kids will get money. She told me that it is a must for married men to buy insurance. Now it was my turn I told her that I am unmarried (I lied ;-) ) so she said “aap shadi to karoge hi to insurance to reqd hi hoga” I asked if she was married on which she said no. Then I asked “Madam aap mujh se shadi kar lo. Engineer hoon, 6 Foot ka jawan hoon, Kamata bhi hoon. aur tab mujhe insurance bhi chahiye hoga” Shockingly she said “Sir, why are you joking.” I said “no! I am serious. It’s a win win situation. Mera ghar bas jayega aur aapki policy bik jayegi. So when can I meet your mother? ” She put up the phone & since then I have got no call from ICICI.

Link

Sunil Date shares his amazing incidents

I got a phone call asking me if I required a loan. (Old days not now). I replied ” Yes I am intrested in intrest free-non refundable loan. ” Unfortunately the poor thing could’nt understand the joke.

I got another call from a tele caller. She ” Sir your number has been selected by a lottery and you are invited to such & such hotel on ..at .. for a presentation. And a free gift is awaiting you”. I ” If you want to give me a free gift then why don’t you visit my office and give it to me ? I will visit the hotel for the presentation after seeing the gift” .

I got another similar call . She “Sir you number has been selected by a lottery and you are invited to such & such hotel on ..at .. And a free gift is awaiting you.” I “Will you be there ?” She flustered ” No sir. My boss will be there” I ” Then I am not intrested”.

Link

Note – We understand that marketing calls are made by people due to their job and target pressure. We in no way disrespect them or trying to make fun of them. With this post, we just want to communicate the pain the other side goes through and few tricks shared by others to avoid those unwanted calls.

Do you have any incident to share with us?

Why “Forced Investing” is really good for your financial life ?

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

A big reason why some financial lives are messed up is because there is no “accountability” factor in those financial life, you are not answerable to anyone, you are not required to report the progress of your financial life to anyone like you file your income tax returns each year. Because of this fact, most of the investors have to depend on their “will power” and “commitment”, but truly speaking – in real life it does not work! . Just promising yourself that you will “stick to your plan” fails like anything. Whats the solution here?

In my opinion, the solution is simple and amazingly astonishing – you take decisions which “forces” you to invest from time to time, you surrender to a situation which makes you pay due to some fear and compulsion, where you cant come out of it so easily.

Forced Investing is good

There are various decisions like Buying a House on EMI, Starting a SIP in a mutual fund, opening a Recurring Deposit, Buying a Policy which forces you to keep paying premium or installment over the years/months help you save money by “compulsion”. The product design is such that you get into a structure or an arrangement that makes you feel – “I have no option” . Most of the people will not be able to save any money if they do not rely on these “compulsive” investments and each month their money from saving bank account keep reducing the same way I saw audience disappear every minute while watching “Lootera” movie this Weekend (It really looted my Rs 400 bucks) .

Let me point out some scenarios which will make this point clear.

1. Forcing your brother to pay for Education Loan

Imagine, you have a spoilt brother/sister, whose mindset is not designed by God to “save” . Now you or your father have the money to fund the education cost for college. But instead of that, you tell him/her that there is no money and education loan is the only option, which he/she will have to pay back later once he gets a job. Now there is “compulsion” to pay this EMI, there is no escape from it. Out of whatever he/she earns, they will be forced to pay away with the EMI part and only the rest money will be there for them to “enjoy” and you can be sure that it will all vanish by the end of the month, which would have happened anyways even if there was no “compulsion to pay EMI”.

2. Taking Home Loan

This is Interesting , A lot of people are afraid of committing themselves home loan because they feel the insecurity of jobs or no potential salary hikes in future etc and because of this risk factor, they have not taken a loan till now, and the worst part is they neither have any money left with them over the years (which they might have paid in EMI, where has it all gone ?) .

A lot of people who took courage in the start and took home loan even if it meant stretching their financial life, would be able to confirm that because it was mandatory for them to pay the EMI each month, they did everything and anything to make it possible. The compulsion of paying the EMI over years brought some discipline and seriousness in them about their financial life.

3. Recurring Deposits & SIP’s

Try opening a Recurring Deposit of Rs 1,000 per month (option 1) and try to drop two Rs 500 notes in a piggy bank at home each month at the end of the month or the start of the month (option 2) and then see the results after 1-2 yrs. The compulsion and automation which a Recurring Deposit brings in your financial life can never be achieved by a piggy bank, simply because of the passive nature of recurring deposit or a SIP in mutual funds (the money goes and you are not even asked for it and some times you are not even aware that it happened). However, with the Piggybank model, each time you have to consciously take that action, and since you are Human, you fail at it. Any decision where “you” have to take “manually” take some “action” eventually have very high chances that it will not happen (on a consistent basis).

4. Investing in Child & Endowment Policies

I was arguing with a Certified Financial Planner on how one has to avoid those endowment policies and child plans which they feel are amazing financial products. He asked me – “Manish, I know that these policies are not going to give the best returns, but do you know most of the investors want some short term pleasure to invest. These endowment/ULIP/child policies give tax benefits and because they have penalty for discontinuing – there is a compulsion to pay each year and that makes them invest each year.”

Just saying – “SIP is better and Mutual fund is amazing” will create short term excitement for them, but at the end of the day they will not take any action because Mutual funds and other powerful products are highly liquid and investors fall to this and can not control themselves in front of short term requirements which comes in front of them”.

This made me realize , that most of the time policies which are illiquid can be good for investors (who are weak in controlling themselves) because they need some compulsion and fear to continue. You can see people redeeming their Mutual Funds to upgrade the car, but hardly anyone does that with an LIC policy. Right?

Try to incorporate “Compulsion” with every decision

The biggest take away from this article for you is that wealth gets built over years only when you are consistent and disciplined and there are financial decisions which can bring that “compulsion” element. It’s in your interest to take decisions which bring some kind of compulsion in your life. So next time you decide to save some money at home in a piggy bank or in your almirah, ask yourself will it bring any accountability, compulsion, and automation (where you are not involved manually), or should you open a Recurring Deposit or a SIP which will help you on those factors. You might want to have a look at our full-fledged paid video program on “Automation in your Financial Life” on our Wealth Club

If you are still wondering why these compulsive decisions help you grow wealth, understand the advantage of bringing compulsion in your financial life is that it changes your financial life equation from “Saving = Income – Expenses” to -> “Expenses = Income – Saving” . You first “save and invest” and then spend !

Let me know your views on this topic?

4 reasons why you should avoid Health Insurance policies from Banks with cheap premiums !

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

Do you come across health insurance policies from Bank with surprisingly low premiums and with amazing features and benefits, which makes you feel you should not miss this offer? Today I will give you good enough ideas about those health insurance policies and will help you understand the limitations of those health insurance policies from the bank and why you should avoid them in most of the cases. Let’s start.

Health Insurance from Banks

Background about Health Insurance policies offered by Banks?

All the health insurance policies offered by banks is mainly a group of health insurance provided to all their banking customers in association with some external general insurance company. What happens, in this case, is that a health insurance company approaches a bank and tells them that they can offer a specialized health cover to all their bank customers with lots of benefits with a small premium. The best part of these policies is that there are no medicals involved, there are fixed premiums for all age group customers, very low premium, etc. On the first look, you will not even believe that something of that kind can exist.

But there is always another side of the situation and now these policies despite looking amazing to have lots of problems and limitations which you should know and then take the decision. Let’s check them one by one

1. Depends on negotiations every year

Health insurance policies provided by banks are actually an outsourced thing. So if you buy it from bank A, then actually its a policy from Insurance company B, the bank is merely an intermediary. As this policy is a group cover, the policy premiums and all the featured are going to be negotiated on a regular interval like each year or twice a year. Now the problem is that if the health insurance company feels that the premiums should be revised (for whatever reason), then banks can’t do anything and the only customer will suffer here because he did his long term health insurance planning with this policy.

The premiums of the policy can rise like anything in the future because the pricing of the product is very flawed in most cases because banks do not have much experience in the health insurance domain.

In absence of the right expertize with most Banks, the pricing could be majorly flawed. Though there are no published figures available, our sources at some Insurance companies say that it is an incessantly “bleeding portfolio”. We believe, any contract, in any field, which is not win-win,does not work in the long term.

2. Chances of association breaking in future

What will a customer do if the association breaks between the bank and insurance company in the future? Health care costs are increasing and its always a good thing to get your self insurance as soon as possible, now if after 5 yrs of running a policy suppose the association breaks, a customer will be left into a situation where he has to again find a suitable policy and who knows if he has developed some illness in between these 4-5 yrs, who will cover that. Here is a real-life experience from Ketan shah on the forum, see how he suffered when something similar happened with him

Dena bank 5 Years back came out with Scheme in tie up with Oriental Insurance for providing mediclaim at highly attractive premium i.e. Rs. 7000 for 5 Lac cover.

We hold various accounts with dena bank and as per their tie up we got ourselves covered (5 Policies) after paying 2 years premium, when the 3 rd year renewal came we were informed that the tie up with Oriental is no more there and the same policy will be transferred to United India Insurance for same Premium..

Now we have paid 2 years premium with United India and the 3rd year Premium we are informed that Dena Bank has increased the Premium 2 -3 fold for policies…

Now trusting Dena bank and paying 5 years of Premium which comes to almost 2 Lacs we are stranded and forced to pay high Premium for my parents and now we are in a fix If we don’t pay and we cant even change the company since parents are 65 +

we were assured that the scheme shall continue since it is bank tie up and therefore we got our previous pvt policy cancelled which had a very High Premium for my Parents (20000 for 5 Lac)
Please advice if we can approach IRDA for the same…

3. Limits on renewable age

Health insurance is a long term financial product and should always be bought with very long term benefits in mind. Having a lifetime renewal option is not just a wish, but kind of must-have feature in your health insurance policy and that’s where these policies from banks fail. They all have a limitation on the renewal age in most of the cases.

Even if the premiums are lower, what will you do sometime in the future when you really need that policy and it shuts the door for you.

4. Pathetic “service” issues

The service provided at the time of claim settlement is really a big parameter. Now if you have bought it from the bank (here bank is the agent), there is no “person” or “company” to help or assist you at the time of claim settlement? Whom do you mail? Who do you talk to? Who will you catch? Who will you blame? The bank due to its size and nature will not entertain you in a proper manner.

Also being a group policy, it some times gets very complex to understand their limitation and many things will be a complete nightmare for you as a customer. So it’s really a big disadvantage here. I want you to go through the following conversation on service issues which was done by Mahavir Chopra of medimanage and Ritesh sometime back. It will give you some idea about this aspect.

Bad Service in health insurance by banks

Overall I would say any health insurance from banks which are pure group cover should be just an extra health cover in your life. It should NOT be the primary long term solution for your health insurance needs. Its very important to have a large health cover from a very strong company with great benefits and strong service levels.

What do you feel ?

Should you become Priority Banking Customer? Are their any advantages ?

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

Have you ever thought of applying for Priority Banking with your bank (also called as Preferred banking)? A lot of banks offer something called “Priority Banking Solutions” to their customers who qualify the eligibility criteria. A priority banking customer is treated in a more special way and is taken care of priority by the bank. Let us talk about it in detail and does it make any sense for you as a customer to apply for priority banking customer or not?

Priority Banking India

Why does a bank have a Priority Banking Model?

The first question to understand is why do banks have a Priority banking model at all? The reason is very simple, to treat different levels of customers differently. If you want to harshly put it, then its just a way of keep a separate list of High Net-worth Individuals and focus on them more and service them in a better manner, because one customer who is eligible for priority banking will give 100 times more business/profit to the bank compared to a normal customer. A preferred banking customer will have a few eligibility criteria to honor, which is generally linked to his bank amount balance.

When I looked at HDFC Priority Programme, its eligibility criteria mentions this –

You are eligible for the HDFC Bank Priority Programme ** if you:

  • Hold at least one Savings or Current account, sole or joint, with HDFC Bank.
  • Maintain a minimum Average Monthly balance of Rs. 15 Lakhs across all your accounts (Savings, Current and Fixed Deposits*)
    OR
  • Maintain an Average Quarterly Balance of Rs. 2 Lakhs in your Savings account.
    OR
  • Maintain an Average Quarterly Balance of Rs. 5 Lakhs in your Current account.
  • The requisite balance can be maintained over your accounts and over those of your immediate family members.

In the same way, other banks also keep criteria for maintaining a high balance in saving bank account. That simply means that the bank would get lots of cash to use for their own business and naturally they can treat these customers very well. Check out this survey on the best banks in India.

Facilities provided to Priority Banking Customer

A Priority banking customer has few advantages over normal customers and gets more features. Some of the most common one’s are

  • Separate queue for in the bank so that you don’t wait
  • No charges on NEFT and RTGS transactions through Net banking
  • Free “At Par” cheque book payable at any Bank branch across the country, so you do away with the need to ask for demand drafts
  • Charges waiver for DD cancellation, Cheque return, Duplicate statement charges, Demand Draft Charges, Discount in Locker Charges,
  • Cheque pick-up facility
  • No charges on balance inquiries and cash withdrawals if you transact on Other Bank ATMs in India.
  • Many other benefits
  • Premium Credit Cards

However, all this is not so real and true

While banks list down these facilities on their website, on the ground level – there are many real-life customers who say that at the end of the day, you never get what is promised from these banks. There are a lot of things just on paper. Most of the banks just use the Preferred banking route to attract high net worth customers and finally end up calling then for investment products. A relationship manager keeps in touch with you (the target), he has all the information on how much money you have and when money comes and goes out of your account.

Here are 2 real-life experiences related to Priority banking from our questions and answers forum. Hope you get some good ideas from it.

Case 1 – Yogesh Shares his experience

There are no major benefits for being Classic or even Priority customer except some savings in NEFT charges and cheque book requests. I was HDFC classic customer for last 10 years. Around 9 months back they changed my status as Priority customer without taking a consent from me (same reason..as I opened some FD the bank) I just received letter that I am now Priority customer.

I did not notice any big difference of status being Classic or Priority customer.

The facilities they have are actually only on paper. Despite of a lot of follow up locker facility when one new branch had recently started and lockers were available, I did not get it. I was told to take some Young star policy in case I want locker. I denied this condition and the result was they did not allocate locker to me. So 50% discount is on paper. In last 10+ years I even did not meet personal banker for more than 5 times. My experience is personal banker keeps on changing periodically (on an average 2 years for each PB) and sometimes you need to trace who is your PB !

Question one may ask why I am still continuing with HDFC bank as classic customer. The simple reason is the bank is closer to my residence and with very less crowd.

In the last month I broke my FDs because of some reason and immediately they put my account into ‘Others’ category and again without informing me ! I could know that after they started charging me for account statement, signature verification/wife’s name change for mutual funds, NEFT transactions etc. So now I have instructed them to update my account as to ‘Classic Customer’ status as I still meet those criteria. Important thing to note…my Personal Banker did not take action immediately this time. That person told me s/he will forward my request to relevant department. Also at the same time this Personal Banker asked me to send request to know new Personal Banker !

Case 2 – Ayush Shares his experience

In my opinion there is no harm in being a Priority or privilege customer and using benefits offered by the bank (if they are of any use to you and are saving you time and money)

The main drawback here is, your name will go into their database as a customer with more money than some (or say lot) of others. This may result in some unwanted call such as credit card / loans / insurance or other banking products. When it comes to the actual banking needs there is nothing big that you will get. The relationship manager may keep calling you with information on new products.

My personal experience being a classic customer with HDFC is not so encouraging when the genuine banking needs are there. For example, I requested that I need a safety locker in HDFC branch but just like other customers I am on waiting list. In case I am lucky enough to get a locker, I have to pay only half the annual fee but will I get a locker is the question, that remains. You can save a few Rs. by saving on DD charges (to a certain limit), NEFT charges etc. but nothing big.

I am continuing just because I have all my banking /investment etc through HDFC and do not want to change and this classic banking is an added thing on to that account.

Conclusion

Most of the people have very basic banking needs, especially after Internet banking and mobile banking has arrived, your dependence on cheque books, Demand Drafts, and any physical visits to banks has reduced. For most of the people, anyways banking is just a small part of their financial life and they get most of the facilities and what they need from their basic banking account only. For them, it does not make a lot of sense to apply for priority banking . However, there are many investors who are heavily into banking due to personal reasons or for their professional needs.  For many of them, few features which come with Priority banking might mean a very big thing. If you are one of them, just see how much of it will be eventually used by you and then take a call.

What do you think about it? Would you like to become a Priority Banking customer or not ?

How prepared are you for these 4 bad situation in your financial life?

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

Are you ready for the bad phase in your life which might come anytime? How prepared are you? We should not be pessimistic in life and always look forward to thinking positive, but that does not mean, we should not be prepared for bad times. Bad things happen in life and you must have seen many bad things happening in others’ lives. We don’t prepare for these bad times, because we have somewhere believed that we are more lucky or privileged than others (if you don’t agree, ask yourself what are changing of your accident, and you will surely say, much lower than 95% of other people on earth).

are you ready in financial life urgent situations

Are you ready for these 4 situations?

When something bad happens in our life (or financial life), we suffer, our families suffer, lots of confusion arises (and many times we are not there to fix it back) and if we are alive, we regret about not preparing for small things which could have eased the situation. So let’s see how much prepared, are you? I want you to not just read, just keep asking at every point if it’s true in your financial life or not?

Situation 1 – What if you die?

Someone asked me a few months back to not use such direct words, but unless I do that, no one reads seriously. Now ask yourself

Does your family know how to take out money from your bank accounts? Do they know your ATM password? Will they be able to access everything you have in your head right now from passwords to remember how much money you need to get back from a friend, to where exactly your whole net-worth lies? Will they be able to arrange for the next 1 yrs of expenses if you are gone? What about the next 30 yrs? Have you prepared a BlackBox emergency kit for your family?

Situation 2 – If you lose the job?

I want you to imagine you lost your job right now at this moment. Now – Can you pay your next 6 months EMI? Will you have the guts to take your family out for a late-night movie and a nice dinner costing 3k Or will you tell them – “Its a flop movie, we can watch on a laptop ?”. Can you sleep well after you are rejected in your new interview ? Will you be able to say – “Sorry, I am forced to take this job because … “. What if the job does not match your liking, will you still have that power to say NO to the next job? Now your answer for all these things can be YES or NO, and its a clear indication of how well prepared are you for these situations. Its time to think about it?

Situation 3 – If you need Rs 5 lacs suddenly?

Lots of people I know cant arrange Rs 1 lac given some emergency situation, can you? If yes, then what about Rs 5 lacs? If I give you 24 hours or 1-month deadline, then can you do it? Have you been preparing for this kind of nasty situation in your life? Now, why would you need 5 lacs? There can be many things which can happen like – some medical emergency situations in the family, or because you found your dream home and have to make down-payment.

So, If you cant arrange for 5 lacs, then ask yourself how much you can? 3 lacs ? 1 lac ? Rs 50,000 ? The good news is that you don’t need 5 lacs at the moment, but the situation can come anytime? Start working on it.

Situation 4 – If you were to be hospitalized?

If you were to meet an accident and hospitalized, things would still be in control, if you are conscious, because you can guide your family on what is to be done and from where to arrange for money and where are your health insurance documents, but Imagine you are unconscious and can’t communicate to your family – Does your family know how to arrange for few thousand rupees to start with ? Do they know where is your health insurance card or how to access your emergency fund? Do they even know the name of your health insurance company, how about the TPA phone numbers? Have you ever stored an ambulance service number on their mobile or , your mobile which takes not more than 1 min exactly!?

Do you have any black box kit prepared for your family which has some useful information for them in financial life which makes their life easy? In my 2nd book – “How to be your own financial planner in 10 steps“, In the last chapter, I have discussed this matter at length and also told the importance of documentation for a stronger financial life, do order it right now, just takes few hundreds of bucks.

Are you getting ready now?

You don’t have to feel overwhelmed because you are not ready, A lot of others are also in the same position, you are lucky to realize this now and have lots of times on your side to work on it. Do not look for perfection and strive to complete 100% of what is asked, but at-least identify core issues in your financial life and situations which you feel you should be ready with?

By the way, how many months can you survive without a job? Tell me in the comments section and how you feel about it?

How Ready Reckoner rates by Govt affect real estate Prices ?

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

A lot of investors wonder how the real estate prices go up and down (do they?) over years. A very big role in the movement of real estate prices is played by something called “ready reckoner rates” . Ready reckoner rates for each area in the city are defined by the state govt. Let us understand this thing in detail.

what is ready reckoner rates

Ready Reckoner rates are the prices of land, residential properties, and commercial properties for any given area defined and published by govt each year. It’s revised from time to time whenever govt feels that there is a need for prices revision. Stamp duty and registration costs that are paid by a real estate buyer cant be below this ready reckoner price or the actual price of the property.

For example – Let’s say that ready reckoner rates for some location is set at Rs 4,000 per sq ft (as per state govt) and the cost of the property as per that comes at Rs 40 lacs. Now imagine that the builder is quoting the cost of the property to you at Rs 50 lacs. Now the stamp duty will be paid on Rs 50 lacs only because its higher than Rs 40 lacs. However – suppose you decide to pay Rs 20 lacs in black and only Rs 30 lacs in white money, still, your registration & stamp duty will be paid on Rs 40 lacs costs because that’s the minimum pricing set by govt itself.

Ready Reckoner rates are linked to Built-up Area

Note that the ready reckoner rates are linked to the Built-up area of the property, not carpet area or super built-up area. So if ready reckoner rate is Rs 4,000 sq/ft and builder tells you that he will also sell the property to you at Rs 4,000 sq/ft, don’t get fooled!, because builder tells you the pricing linked with super built up area and not built up area, which in most of the cases is higher, so eventually the rate charged by builder is always higher, if you convert it for the built-up area. Just for example if super built up area is 1,000 sq/ft and built up area is 800 sq/ft, then Rs 4,000 per sq/ft area quoted for super built-up area (Rs 40 lacs cost), is same as Rs 5,000 sq/ft quoted for built up area (same Rs 40 lacs) .

Just to make sure you understand the terminologies –

  • Carpet area – A Net usable area of the property (imagine you put carpet, what all part of flat, it will cover)
  • Built-up area – Carpet area + walls and doors area (imagine you remove the thick walls and all doors, then what you will be left with)
  • Super built-up area – Built-up area (which you get) + everything from the staircase, garden, gym, swimming pool and everything you use (your proportion)

How ready reckoner rates affect the prices of real estate

Now – It’s very clear, that ready reckoner price is the FAIR PRICE (which is fair value) set by govt itself. Now builders can charge the premium on that fair price depending on market condition, demand, quality and their goodwill and their exploitation power :). So the market price (the actual prices prevailing in the market), will definitely be always higher than ready reckoner prices (benchmark). Now if the benchmark itself is higher at any given point of time and also keeps increasing over years, the market price quoted by builders will also be high.

Example – Just to give you an example, in one of the areas called “Kondhwa” in Pune, the ready reckoner price set by govt is around Rs 3,700 per sq/ft, however, the builders are charging anywhere from Rs 4,500 to 6,500 per sq/ft at the moment. Imagine if this year govt increases it to 4,000, then automatically the rates will go up by that much margin because builders get a good reason to escalate the cost.

One of the largest revenue sources of any state govt is the stamp duty from property registrations and it’s always in state govt interest(from a revenue point of view) to keep the ready reckoner rates higher or increase it if there is any justification for it, live development done, roads constructed, etc…

Where to find the Ready reckoner rates for your area?

Now, you cant control the actual price you have to pay to a builder, but it’s a good idea to check out the ready reckoner rates of the area, where you are thinking of buying the property. Now there are few ways you can find out the ready reckoner rates of your area (or any area). Here are a few of them, some easy and some tough.

1. On the website of “Registration and Stamp Duty Department”

Each state govt has its own department of “Registration and Stamp Duty”. You can reach the website by searching the sentence “Registration and Stamp duty department” and adding state name along with it on google. Like if you want to find out the website for Maharashtra search for “Registration and Stamp Duty Maharashtra” (direct link) and the first link you get it “igrmaharashtra.gov.in/‎”. On the website, you need to search for a link – which says something like “market rates” or some equivalent in the local language of the state. If you are lucky, you might reach the final page which helps you find out the ready reckoner rates for all the cities in the state. It will help you find the rates as per city, taluka, location or survey number. I tried this trick and was able to find out the websites links for 3 states

  • Andhra Pradesh (for Hyderabad) – Direct Link

Note – The rates might be displayed in per sq yard, per sq meter etc, so better change them to per sq feet and also make sure you use IE or Firefox to access the websites because they still don’t know chrome exists!

2. Using RTI application

The second way to find out the rates is to use the RTI application against the same Registration and Stamp Duty department (many times called “revenue department” like in Delhi). All you need to do is file an RTI to the respective officer and to your jurisdiction asking for the rates in a particular city and area. You can take help of this article to understand the format and procedure

3. Office of Sub-registrar

One of the best ways would be to go to the sub-registrar office (where the properties are registered) and find out the rates from there itself. If you do not find the support of the staff there, don’t forget to mention words like RTI, CIC and “One of my friend works in Media” and they should accept doing some work for you.

4. From the newspapers

All the newspapers keep on publishing these rates from time to time. Just keep an eye on real estate section from time to time and you should be able to get some info. Below I am attaching some snapshots I got from the Internet for the revised rates in the year 2013 from 2012.

mumbai ready reckoner rates

Pune ready reckoner rates

Pimpri Chinchwad ready reckoner rates

No Ready Reckoner rates for rentals

There are ready reckoner rates for buying the properties, but there are no ready reckoner rates for rentals. It would be amazing if govt comes up with that too, it would then help us to understand which area is doing better then others and how much premium home owners are asking for over govt defined rental rates.

Overall what do you think about ready reckoner rates and does it helps the overall industry or goes against it? Please put your comments!

Tax saving investment declaration to Employer – How does it Work ?

Posted on by Jagoinvestor

Every year, when the new financial year starts, employers ask their employees to declare their investments and give an idea about where will they invest to save the tax. There is a page on the companies’ websites, where each employee has to declare their investments. Come of the examples of the target options are life insurance premiums, ELSS investments, Rent, Ulips and home loan-related numbers.

Investment Proofs for Tax Saving

Why do employers ask for this investment declaration?

The employer asks for this information because they want to approximate how much will be your final taxable income (after deducting the tax saved through 80C investments, HRA, Home loan and medical bills. So that they can cut a constant amount of TDS each month.

A lot of employees get a bit tensed thinking, what exactly they should mention while declaring the investments. They feel that at the end of the year, they will have to invest exactly in the same order in which they declared. However, this is not correct. All you need to do is invest the same amount declared at the start of the year into any tax-saving investments option.

For example – If you had declared that you will invest Rs 50,000 in LIC policy and Rs 30,000 in Tax saving mutual funds (ELSS). The total is Rs 80,000. Now your employer will deduct Rs 80,000 from your projected income for the year and arrive at net taxable income and find out how much is the tax you need to pay at the end of the year (projected). Now he will just divide it by 12, and find out the monthly number and start cutting that much tax each month from your salary.

Now when the month of Dec/Jan arrives, your employer asks you for investments proof. Now when you actually give it to them, they recalculate things and see if things are matching with what you declared at the start of the year or not.

How does Investment declartion for Tax saving work ?

There can be 3 scenarios here.

Case 1 – Amount Actually Invested Less than Amount declared in the start

In-case you were not able to invest up to the amount you declared, or you were not able to submit the documents to your employer on time, it means your employer will assume that you will not be able to do so, and that means that they have over estimated your tax saving and the tax paid by employer is lesser (because you owe more tax, due to less tax-saving investments) . In which case, the employer will recalculate your tax liability and now will adjust it with the next 1-2 month salary (Feb/Mar). Which means you get less salary in the last 1-2 months.

But, If you are able to finally invest for tax saving, then at the time of tax filing you need to declare it and ask for a tax refund from the IT department. It’s always a good idea if you can avoid this situation because then it takes a lot of time to get back your refund.

If for some reason, your employer does not cut the tax from your last month’s salary, then you directly owe the tax to govt. This can also happen if you have any other income source, which is not accounted for by the employer, in that case, you need to pay the tax to govt directly. You can do it online using Challan 280 on the IT department website. Then at the end of the year, you can file the returns.

Case 2 – Amount Actually Invested = Amount declared in the start

If you invest the same amount as declared at the start of the financial year, it means that your taxable income would be almost same as computed by your employer and the amount of tax you paid was equal to what you owe to the income tax department. In this case, there is nothing much you need to do. just file the ITR at the end of the year and everything should be pretty smooth unless you have income from other sources.

Case 3 – Amount Actually Invested More than Amount declared

It might happen that you declared only Rs 50,000 investments, but finally invested Rs 1,00,000 into tax-saving instruments, which means you saved more tax. However, your employer has been deducting the tax assuming your declaration for Rs 50,000 only, which means the employer was paying more tax to govt on your behalf. Now, this means you are entitled to get a tax refund and you can ask for it when you file the returns. Generally, it’s a good idea to declare the maximum possible investments in the start, let your employer assume you will do maximum tax saving (so that less tax is paid), and then make sure you actually invest the promised amount. In the worst case, if you fail to do so, better pay the tax at the end of the year or get less salary (be prepared for it)

This article from Bemoneyaware talks about this topic in much detail. Did you get clarity about investment proofs for your employer? Do you have any questions?