Housing finance regulator National Housing Bank (NHB) has directed all housing finance companies (HFCs) to stop levying penal charges on customers for pre-payment of home loans with immediate effect. These prepayment penal charges are levied mainly by the private sector banks and housing firms and could be as high as four per cent. The move is expected to provide relief to lakhs of home loan borrowers from HFCs. National Housing Bank (NHB) regulates 54 housing finance companies, including mortgage major HDFC, LIC Housing Finance and Dewan Housing Finance.
“The move benefits only HFC borrowers at present. But if the move spurs the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to follow suit, that will relieve all the borrowers, including home and auto loan borrowers, from the prepayment charges,” said a personal finance advisor, who wished not to be identified. “The pre-payment charges were restraining customers from moving around,” NHB chairman and managing director (MD) R.V. Verma said.
Recently one more Gold ETF is launched and it comes form IDBI Mutual Fund. Its called IDBI Gold ETF. At present there are 12 gold ETF’s in market and this is a new entry. The NFO for this fund would be open during Oct 19 – Nov 2 . The benchmark would be the domestic gold prices and it would be traded in BSE and NSE both.
Gold has given exceptional returns in last many years and markets are not doing good, so these both reasons are good enough to lure new investors for investment in gold.
As per a CapitalMind article, In a recent verdict, supreme court has said that “General Power Of Attorney” or GPA as its reffered as is not a legitimate or legal way of transferring the properties. A lot of transactions happens by mis-using GPA and it leads to Avoiding of high registration fees , Avoid scrutiny , Land grabbing , Owning agricultural or restricted land .
According to a ToI article:
The verdict is likely to affect a large number of property owners. A senior lawyer who vets sale documents for a leading bank estimated that around 70% of property sales in Delhi take place through GPA and SA.
Apartment owners in societies which have not got a completion certificate will find themselves on a sticky wicket because these flats cannot be converted into freehold. Until now, these properties could be sold through GPA and SA. The new ruling will effectively mean such apartments cannot be sold. Experts also say the verdict will raise the market value of freehold real estate while depressing the price of leasehold properties.
Federal Bank has partnered with Oriental Insurance Company to launch a mediclaim policy for the NRI community, ‘Fed Oriental Pravasi Insurance’, which will offer NRIs a cover for normal hospital expenses and unforeseen events such as repatriation and accidents. The policy also includes a legal/litigation cover, hospitalisation cover, personal accident cover and a medical floater cover for family members, besides maternity benefits.
All new NRI customers, who maintain a minimum balance of Rs5,000 or more are eligible for the insurance coverage. Medical floater cover for family is available in the event of death or disability of the insured for Rs10 lakh. This policy provides cashless treatment facility at more than 3,000 hospitals
Now you can get your EPF balance on your mobile number. Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation has launced a website which can give your EPF balance. Here are the steps.
1) Go to http://www.epfindia.com/MembBal.html ( http://www.epfindia.com/)
2) Select your EPFO Office where PF account it maintained.
3) Enter your PF Account Number – Don’t enter Extension (4th field). Identifying the correct value in each field is little complicated.
Example : Bangalore PF Account Number format = KN/12345/9876 then just enter 12345 in 3rd field, 4th field blank and 9876 in 5 th field in PF account number as shown below.
4) Enter your Mobile and Name, Accept Terms and condition and Submit.
You will get SMS alert from EPFO : EE amount : Rs XXXXX and ER amount Rs:XXXXX as on <Today’s Date>(Account updated upto <31-03-2009>). Source
You must be seeing a mutual funds advertisement from AMFI from last few weeks in TV. It has been a hit among investors and AMFI has recieved thousands of enquiries about mutual funds investments from investors in last couple of weeks . If you enquire about mutual funds by sending an SMS <SAVING> to 56070 .
You will be getting a call from AMFI in your city and you will get a 36 page booklet send to your address. This 36 page booklet is made by AMFI which clears all the doubts about Mutual funds. So hurry up and send the sms to get your copy !
By April 2012 – AMFI is going to launch a Mutual funds transaction platform which will be open for distributors as well as Investors and one can transact for a fee for each transaction. It will be a cost effective model as its a NOT FOR PROFIT platform and the costs will only cover the maintenance costs. Advisors will be able to invest for their clients through this platform reducing their travelling costs and maintenance.
At the moment this kind of online investing platforms are provided by few providers, but once this AMFI platform will be launched , it can pose severe competition to them. read more here
Tata mutual funds have launched a fund called Retirement Savings Fund which is framed as a retirement product. The main idea behind the product is to keep asset allocation appropriate as per the age of the investor . There are 3 different stages in the fund , first is “Progressive plan” which will be for investors below age 45 and in this the equity allocation will be anywhere from 85-100% . When an investor passes age 45 , then he will shift to moderate plan where the equity allocation is between 65%-85% and finally once he crosses age 60 , the equity allocation would come down to 30% or less .
One a person retires at age 60 (this is fixed) , he will get the pension in form of units sold (SWP) , which will either be 1% of investments monthly or 3% of investments quarterly. Overall this looks a good plan for those who do not know how much to allocate where at different times
L&T Insurance recently got approval from IRDA to launch its health insurance plan called Medisure Prime, which comes with some unique and innovative features. Some of the features includes Cashless Claims Service Assurance and Reimbursement Claims Service Assurance . There is also a feature called Case manager , where in selected cities, customers would have access to a Policy manager who would be available on call and meet customers to explain the benefits and clarify any doubts on the Policy
Medisure Prime also covered preexisting illnesses from 3rd year and comes with a life long renewal guarantee. There will be 25% co-pay for people above age 70.
Source : medimanage.com
Insurance regulator IRDA recently announced that if one makes any cash payment of more than Rs 50,000 in Insurance premiums, he/she will have to quote his/her PAN number. This will help in tracking the source of funds. This guideline will come into effect from Nov 1, 2011 . the verfication of PAN numbers will have to be done by the insurers themselves .
“With a view to ensuring that premiums are paid out of clearly identifiable sources of funds, it has been decided to permit premium/proposal deposits remittances in cash beyond Rs 50,000 per transaction subject to the customer quoting PAN,” Irda said in a circular.