The interest rates have been going down for over a year now. I have written many times about how banks and housing finance companies are reluctant to pass on the lower rates or move you to a more transparent interest rate regime (Base Rate to MCLR or MCLR to Repo Rate Linked loans). Even if… Continue Reading
Loan EMI and credit card payment moratorium comes to an end on August 31, 2020. While it is possible that the moratorium will be extended, you can’t be sure until RBI makes an announcement. As a borrower, what should you do? Irrespective of what the Reserve Bank decides, you must have a Plan B. You… Continue Reading
I came across an interesting case in a business daily a few weeks back. A consumer forum bench directed ICICI Bank to pay Rs 55,000 to a borrower. Here is how this happened. The borrower signed up for a home loan of Rs 30 lacs for 10 years from ICICI Bank in 2006. The loan… Continue Reading
The bank must link all new floating rate loans to retail customers loans from October 1, 2019 to an external benchmark. The Reserve Bank notified the change in its circular dated September 4, 2019. This means MCLR will soon be history, at least for retail borrowers. Starting October 1, no new floating rate loans will… Continue Reading
SBI had introduced home loans linked to RBI Repo rates as the benchmark in July 2019. This was before the RBI mandated all fresh floating rate loans to retail borrowers from October 1, 2019 to be linked to an external benchmark. SBI had used Repo rate linked lending rate (RLLR) as the benchmark. RLLR was… Continue Reading