You have a car loan, two personal loans, and two credit cards. You have been struggling to meet your monthly loan/card payments. Unable to pay card bills in full. Every month is a juggling act and there is hardly any money left at the end of month. Then a colleague mentions about a “debt consolidation… Continue Reading
Your employer offers you a loan at 4% per annum. The bank would charge you 12%. Sounds like a great deal. But is the entire benefit tax-free? Not necessarily. The rules around this have changed significantly with the Income Tax Act, 2025, applicable from financial year 2026-27 (April 1, 2026 onwards). In this post, let… Continue Reading
You need money, on and off, to bridge cashflow gaps for your business needs. A loan may not be suitable for such a requirement. Why? Firstly, you do not need money all the time. You need it infrequently. In that case, it may not make sense to bear the loan interest rate for 2 years… Continue Reading
What would you prefer? One big loan or multiple small loans? I don’t know about you, but I would prefer one big loan, everything else being the same. Why? Too many loans are difficult to manage. You need to keep track of various payment dates. You must ensure that there is sufficient bank balance to… Continue Reading
When you buy a product from an e-commerce website, you have multiple options to pay through credit. You can pay in full or through merchant EMIs. You can pay in full and later request your bank to convert this purchase into a loan (EMIs). OR you pay in full and take out a separate personal… Continue Reading
You are shopping for clothes at a nearby mall. At the checkout counter, you have an option of taking a personal loan from an NBFC or swiping your credit card. You would most likely swipe your credit card. It is not about filling up a form for the loan and spending 10 minutes to close… Continue Reading
Your most recent credit card bill is Rs 1.5 lacs. Your cashflows do not allow you to settle the card bill in full. What do you do? Clearly, you should have been more careful and should not have raked up such a high card bill in the first place. While you should have been more… Continue Reading
You need to pay your daughter’s college fee of Rs 15 lacs in the coming month. You are wary of visiting the bank branch multiple times for getting an education loan sanctioned. You took a home loan 5 years back. You get a call from your bank that you are eligible for a top-up home… Continue Reading
You plan to take a personal loan. What is the flexibility you would want from your personal loan product? I will share a few thoughts on flexibility expected. Lower charges (beyond the loan interest rate). Processing fee etc. Zero or lower prepayment penalty. No prepayment penalty in a personal loan is asking for too much.… Continue Reading
RBI released a very important circular on April 15, 2024 about Key Facts Statement (KFS) for loans and advances. The circular aims to enhance transparency in the loan costs and charges for the retail borrowers. Usually, the loan agreements have all the information about various costs and charges, but loan agreements are lengthy documents, and… Continue Reading