Expense Account, Mint he least that Anna Hazare would have accomplished would be to get the average citizen up and shouting. Shouting without a trigger—negative or positive. The attack on Mumbai lit candles. The World Cup win triggered a mass beer party. But to get the Punjabi Bagh auntie in a georgette salwar kameez to...
Expense Account, Mint There is a hilarious mail exchange a friend forwarded me between him and his portfolio management scheme (PMS) “relationship manager”. Friend invests money five years ago and forgets about it. 2011 tax time approaches and he pulls out the PMS to see how it did. Where did my Rs 8 lakh reach...
Expense Account, Mint Though I knew the extent of angst against banks as serial mis-sellers of financial products, I was a little surprised at the huge reach-out from readers after the column last week where I wrote about systematic cheating by banks (http://bit.ly/iffYbq) to collect fees and commissions on retail financial products. Apart from sharing...
Expense Account, Mint I wonder why the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has got its head buried in sand over the extent of lies that bankers tell their customers in their attempt to hit them with inappropriate financial products to earn their bonuses and meet their targets. And I wonder how banks can calmly tell...
Expense Account, Mint For an industry waiting with bated breath for the new regulator to indicate which way the wind will blow, the two-page circular uploaded on the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) website on 9 March 2011 (http://bit.ly/fMcM0o) quickly became the most emailed and forwarded document. Through the circular, Sebi has allowed...
Expense Account, Mint Iknew theoretically that large finance firms—banks, financial product manufacturers and financial advisory firms—move to countries with lax regulation. But I am seeing this happen real time right now. In the next two years, I expect large boat-loads of suits to wash up on the Indian coast. They’ll all be escaping from rules...
Expense Account, Mint As I breezily recommend an index fund to anybody who is risk averse and still wants “better” return than a bank deposit, I forget to take into account a slice of the reader and viewer segment which does not know the assumptions or the formulae behind this sweeping prediction of the future...
Expense Account, Mint February is no longer the same. A mixture of rising incomes, home loans and spending-linked tax-saving options (such as school fees) make the Public Provident Fund (PPF) and National Savings Certificate (NSC) investments more for continuation of the account rather than the need to get the Rs1 lakh 80C deduction. But the...
Expense Account, Mint One of the nicest calls I answered on my weekly TV show recently was from a 20-something kid from the US who wanted to plan out her parent’s finances. Mum had retired, dad was going to soon and daughter wanted the best advice for her parents on cracking their retirement nest egg....
Expense Account, Mint In the days when TV dinners took on a new meaning, when the stories about alleged wrongdoing in the preparations for the Commonwealth Games (CWG) became the meal itself at dinner time in homes across the country, I heard this story. One of the scam accused walks into a swish south Delhi...