Indian Economy & its impact over Reality Sector

Indian economy is going through a tough phase. Share market, industrial product and above all, our temper is down. Share market has lost 600 points in a week. Stock prices of many companies are down by 70-80 %. Economy is slowing down, though fundamentals are still very strong, but given its current face, it is definitely getting affected by global circumstances. In last decades or so, reality sector boomed like anything, sector growth was tremendous. As economy was doing well, people were making money & buying houses for personal & investment purpose.

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India ranks 66th at hunger index

One of the worst fact about India came out, India ranks 66th in global hunger index. Global hunger index was released on Tuesday. India has made some progress, since last data, but still situation is alarming. According to data, India’s hunger rate fell from 32.5 in 1990, to 23.7 in 2008. 88 countries were selected for the data, congo came at 88th. The major threat of hunger is in 33 countries, including India. Rising food prices have worsened the situation. Other south asian countries like Bangladesh scored 25.2 (70th place), Pakistan 21.7 (61st), Nepal 20.6 points (57th position), Sri Lanka 15 points (39th position), Thailand 9.9 points (23rd position), china 7.1 points (15th), and Mauritius 5 points (1st position).

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Financial detonation

We are facing a huge financial detonation. Market is collapsing like anything, can’t even get a appropriate term to describe the condition. BSE is trading around 11400 & NSE around 3500. Sometime back, we thought that we have touched the bottom but the current trend in market is disastrous & it can go to any level. Global liquidity crisis is forcing foreign investor to pull out their money to generate cash for them.

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Financial crisis hitting at my gift

Ultimately financial crisis has managed to hit me. Today, I received my diwali gift. It is ten times cheaper than the gift of last year. But the thought of getting a gift in this turmoil had given a smile on my face. At least company has given me something.

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Education – getting shoddier

In recent year, we have seen lot of changes in our education system. Most of the time, intellectuals says that there is huge pressure on students, so lets do something to reduce that. But, are we really doing exactly, what is required? Or we just are reducing the pain. I think we are not focusing upon real issues; we are reducing the quality of education, which will have lethal affect on country.

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Do i need Life Insurance?

I  use to ask this question to me & most often the answer I got was NO. Probably, because I am too optimistic about my life. Then, I realized that any mishap is not going to inform me before coming, if something really happens, then what will happen to my responsibilities. Who is going to take care of my family?

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Credit crisis

In the current scenario, when interest rates are soaring high & inflation is in double digits, credit card issuers are taking extra care while issuing credit card. Recently, world has witnessed the worst credit crisis. Defaults were among one of the prime reason behind collapse of the financial institution in US. This has made bankers to think many times before lending money, in any form. We use home loans, car loans, two wheeler loan, education loans & unsecured credit cards & personal loans. Credit card is one of the most common forms of lending money.

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Profit for life insurers in India

In India, where the market for private sector was opened ten years in back in 1999, most of the private insurance companies are still in loss and are waiting for break up. Last year’s recession made the ride a bit more difficult for them but this years April-Sep results tells a different story. Companies like SBI, Bajaj Allianz posted net profit where as companies like reliance life insurance showed reduction in losses. Companies have gained from the appreciation in values of their investment and reorganizing their business model like cost cutting and slowing down in expansion. Decline in new business also helped as it reduce their cost of doing business as they have to set aside the cost of underwriting.

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Changing global financial system

World is witnessing a change in global financial system. Finance chiefs are preparing for the meet of world leaders in G20 summit, who are fighting against world’s worst financial crisis in last 80 years. In last few months, there has been unstoppable selling of stocks in various share markets. Central banks have launched a range of initiatives to hold the fall in markets which has resulted in recession in various economies across the globe. It has really shattered the confidence of investors. People have lost big portion of their hard earned money. People are losing their jobs, delayed hiring, projects getting postponed & many more things are happening which are against economical growth. It’s been a series of months of downfall. Shares of Indian firms listed in united states have lost more than 3 billions. Everyone is desperate to know the bottom, central banks heads & policy makers have been scratching their head to have some clue about “how to recover from here?”

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Life Insurers stretching to Break even

Life Insurance Companies in India are trying very hard to maintain profit and consequently, Break even. Ten years ago, a survey has predicted that life insurance industry will grow at rate of (CAGR) of 18.9 per cent. The actual growth has been much faster than anticipated and sector has grown at rate of (CAGR) 25.16 per cent. From the annual premium collection of Rs 21,581 crore in 1998-99, the sector has grown to Rs 2,21,688 crore last year.

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Know your Cibil Score

Scores are very important aspect of today’s life and today it’s CIBIL Score. Since our childhood, we all have seen the importance of scores in our life. First, in school, then competition, college and finally ratings in our annual appraisals, scores play an imperative role in our growth. Similarly, when you avail credit in any form, your payment track records are updated and monitored by a national credit agency CIBIL or Credit Information Bureau India. Banks or lending institutions share your payment history with the CIBIL and CIBIL helps them in making the decision. Based upon the payment history, CIBIL assign a score or rating to the individuals.

Cibil Score Importance-When you apply for a credit line, the lending institution checks your credit score and based upon that, makes the offer. Better credit score helps in cracking the better deal. CIBIL assign score at a scale of 100 to 999. A low score of around 100 may result in direct decline by the bank and a good score of around 800 would help applicant in bargaining a good deal like negotiating interest and processing charges. Earlier, the credit score was only open to banks and lending institutions, but now it is open to consumers also.

The credit information contains information about the borrower’s name, address, PAN, Passport number, voter’s ID and date of birth. It has record of all credit line that individual has availed like credit cards, loan etc, along with past payment history, overdue amount and other information like status of any suite or defaults. This score is regularly updated and if someone is having a bad score it doesn’t mean that it can’t be changed. In today’ world, when we have to depend a lot upon credit for various needs like credit cards, Personal loans, auto loans or Home loans, it is very important not only to maintain a good score, but also knowing own score.

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IRDA to allow life insurers to invest in equity derivatives

The insurance and regulatory authority of India is thinking to allow life insurance companies to invest in equity derivatives. Equity derivatives are a category of financial instruments. Their value is derived from partly from one or more underlying equity derivatives. Traders invest in equity derivatives to hedge their risk which they acquire due to exposure to the equity market. Options are the most common form of equity derivatives being traded in today’s market. The matter is under consideration and the guidelines for the matter have not been finalized yet. Currently insurance companies are allowed to invest 50 percent of their funds in government securities, 15 percent in infrastructure related projects, and the remaining 35 percent in non-approved instruments for traditional policies.

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