Agents, firms and shareholders all make money on your destruction savings when you buy a bundled insurance plan
Mutual funds used to spend big money in foreign tourism to incentivise top selling agents. A new push to build knowledge is now becoming visible.
Sebi goes for more disclosure. That's good. But govt needs to get IRDAI to play ball.
Expense Account, Mint What we know anecdotally is now there as data in the Reserve Bank of India annual report 20011-12, that Indian household savings are moving from financial assets to real assets. The household savings rate has remained almost constant at about 23% of gross domestic product (GDP) (at current market prices) but there...
Expense Account, Mint Because much of policymaking in India is about lobbying power, we see some strange outcomes. Take the draft bancassurance guidelines, for example, that lay down the rules of bank tie-ups for insurance companies. The weird spectrum-like allocation of banks to insurance companies is a classic example of a compromise that benefits no...
Expense Account, Mint In the market for a TV, I checked out all the vendors nearby. In the Sony and Samsung showrooms I got the Sony and Samsung TVs. In Croma, I got a variety of brands. On one TV it said Croma. That was the in-house brand which was cheaper than the other branded...
Expense Account, Mint The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has taken a welcome step to bring in a set of adviser regulations. It has released a concept paper on the regulation of investment advisers. India needs a new set of regulations to bring order to a marketplace that moves money between households and...
Expense Account, Mint Are loads back? The distribution industry was agog when news filtered out last week that the Bajpai committee set up by the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) had recommended a 50 basis points (bps) charge on the National Pension System (NPS) point of sale. A quick backgrounder: The Bajpai committee...
Expense Account, Mint I’ve long thought about how to handle the barrage of mail and calls from readers, viewers, friends and family asking for help to deal with a financial problem. The most worrisome are those that complain about a case of mis-selling, that is, the sale of a financial product by a banker, agent...
Expense Account, Mint Last week just as my Twitter feeds got active with links to the British Lloyds Banking Group blinking in its fight with the regulator, the Financial Services Authority (FSA), and agreeing to a £3.2 billion (Rs 23,427 crore) provision to meet insurance mis-selling claims, we at Mint were following the PricewaterhouseCoopers story.Mint reported that while...