Expense Account, Mint The increasing confidence of the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (Irda) showed two weeks ago when it slapped a fine of Rs 1.47 crore on HDFC Standard Life for some five violations out of a list of 25 charges. Indian regulators are not known to levy large sums as fines. Probably the...
Expense Account, Mint Last week, Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) chairman U.K. Sinha, speaking at the Confederation of Indian Industry Mutual Fund Summit, said something that took many of us by surprise. It is not often that a capital markets regulator speaks about the performance of products, the lack of it and how...
Expense Account, Mint At some point I decided that to get a real flavour of what a mutual fund investor goes through, I need to stop using my agent and begin on my own. That was some time back, but the lessons from then still are sharp. And each time I facilitate somebody into using...
Expense Account, Mint India is at risk of losing its investment grade rating, which would make it the first BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) economy to have its rating reduced to junk status. On 11 June, the US rating agency Standard and Poor’s (S&P) released a report titledWill India be the first BRIC fallen angel?,...
Expense Account, Mint How long have you driven your car? How long has that toaster lasted? I’d assume that unless you bought some untested Chinese brand that is built to self-destruct on one use, they’ve lasted a reasonable time and you’ve not had reason to take them back to the store. And assuming you bought...
Expense account, Mint Though I’ve noticed the similarities between healthcare and retail finance, the inherent conflicts of interest in the business models of the two snapped into focus as I watched the latest episode of Satyamev Jayate. For those who did not tune in, the show focused on the conflict of interest in healthcare where doctors...
Expense Account, Mint A committee set up by the insurance regulator earlier this month is all set to look into a host of issues, the chief being product structures in traditional life insurance products. There is arbitrage in the market as the unit-linked insurance plan (Ulip) got a cleaner structure in 2010, but the traditional...
Expense Account, Mint Take a 1970s French scheme that “worked” in what are now seen as medieval times in finance. Add a government department desperate for a new idea, having botched up the retail part of the financial market by creating situations where regulators fight and investors get swindled. And you get the proposed Rajiv...
Expense Account, Mint When U.K. Sinha took over as the capital markets regulator in February 2011, there was a pervasive expectation that the upfront commissions embedded in the price of a mutual fund would be back. His UTI Mutual Fund (UTIMF) and Association of Mutual Funds in India (Amfi) stints were taken as an indication...
Expense Account, Mint The circus around Akshaya Tritiya (the auspicious day to buy gold according to Hindu tradition) this time tells me that we should be near the peak of the gold cycle. It’s when the retail investor gets it, that the party is really over. The exchanges have extended trading hours and knocked off...