How will I Qualify for a Personal Loan?

A personal loan is one of the easiest loans that you can apply for to buy a new gadget, furniture or for renovating your home, or even for planning a much-anticipated vacation. Moreover, a personal loan is also used to consolidate debt such as multiple credit cards, medical bills, etc.

Everyone, be it a salaried individual or a self-employed and nonprofessional, can apply for a personal loan to complete various tasks in life. If you are a salaried person, your age, monthly income, and proper documentation will fix your loan amount, like how much money you can borrow from a bank. On the contrary, for a self-employed individual, personal loan eligibility is calculated on the basis of their business stability, age, and supporting documents.

Note that the eligibility criteria for a personal loan vary across banks in India. This article highlights personal loan eligibility by top banks in India:-

SBI personal loan eligibility:

Your eligibility to get a loan from SBI is your income and repayment capacity. Any applicant who is an Indian citizen can avail a loan of up to 2.5lacs from SBI at 1% processing fee. In metropolitan cities, applicants can avail a personal loan of 5lacs. SBI also provide loans to pensioners below 75 years of age.

HDFC Personal loan eligibility:

Known for its easy approval process and minimal documentation, HDFC bank provides personal loans to people who meet the following criteria:

1. Should be between 21 to 60 years of age

2. Should have 2 years of work experience with minimum one year of tenure in the current company

3. Should earn at least 12,000/- per month and 15,000/- if he/she resides in metropolitan cities.

HDFC provides special personal loan offers for women applicants. With HDFC, you can get your personal loan disbursed in two days.

ICICI personal loan eligibility:

Both salaried and self-employed individuals are eligible to get a personal loan from ICICI, provided they fulfill the following criteria:-

1. An applicant should be aged between 23 to 58 years

2. Should earn minimum 17,000/- pm. and 25,000/- per month if an applicant resides in metro cities.

3. Should have 2 years of work experience

4. Should be staying at the present address for at least one year

5. On the contrary, a self-employed applicant should be in the current business for 5 years. For doctors its 3 years.

6. A self-employed applicant needs to be 28 to 65 years of age. For doctors, the minimum age to apply for an ICICI personal loan is 25.

7. Minimum earnings should be Rs.40lacs for non-professionals and Rs.15lacs for working professionals. Whereas for self-employed individuals, the minimum profit after tax should be 2lacs.

Axis bank personal loan eligibility:

To be eligible for a personal loan from Axis bank, an applicant should be:

1. Minimum 21 years of age and the maximum age should be 60 years at the time of loan maturity

2. Net income should be 15,000/-

Documents to get a personal loan:

The documents that an applicant need to furnish to these banks to get a personal loan are:- One Identity proof (voter ID/driving license/passport copy), one address proof ( passport/utility bill/ration card), income proof (salary slip of last 3 months/bank statement (3 to 6 months)/passbook (3 to 6 months) along with the application duly signed, photographs and processing fee amount in cheque.

The Bottom Line: Getting a personal loan is easy if you go through the fine print carefully and understand the clauses associated with it. A word of advice: personal loan have higher interest rates as compared to other loan types, therefore it is good to look beyond interest rate and contemplate on other factors too. Always choose the loan amount that you can easily pay off. And lastly, never sign up for a personal loan without comparing.

What is New Pension Scheme?

Gone are the days when retirement was all about living in a joint family with all the amenities taken care of by the earning member of the family. Today retirement is more like freedom - a freedom to travel places, pursuing hobbies and contributing to the society. With this consideration in mind, the Government of India has come up with a new pension scheme (NPS) to make the life of retirees self-determined.

Although this scheme was launched way back in 2009, but it has been gaining significance from the last couple of years. One can sign up for this scheme through various banks and other financial entities. As part of this scheme, you will be allotted a permanent retirement account number (PRAN), which will be a unique number valid across the nation.

NPS offers two types of accounts: Tier I and Tier II. Tier I account is for those who choose to contribute their savings, including the contribution from their employer, for retirement into a non-withdrawable account. Tier II account, on the other hand, is a voluntary savings account as per which the contributors are free to withdraw their money anytime they want.

5 features of the New Pension Scheme (NPS)

1. The New Pension Scheme is valid for every individual aged between 18 to 60 years of age

2. Subscribers, to contribute in Tier I and Tier II accounts, are required to make their first contribution at the time of registration with minimum contribution of Rs.500 for Tier I and Rs.1000 for Tier II at any POP-SP with an NCIS form

3. NPS has two approaches to invest money in your account - Active choice and Auto choice

A. In the Active choice option, you will have the option of deciding how your NPS money is invested in three assets classes E, C and G. in this choice, you will have the option of choosing your fund manager and provide the ratio in which your funds have to be invested among the above mentioned asset classes.

B. In the Auto choice option, your money will be invested in various asset classes in a lifecycle fund according to a pre-defined portfolio. In Auto Choice, the proportion of E, C and G is determined by the contributor’s age. At every birthday of the contributor, these proportions are readjusted as stated in the life-cycle matrix.

4. In case you withdraw your NPS deposits before 60 years of age, you’ll get only the 20% of the total amount while the remaining amount will be used to purchase an annuity. However, if you withdraw your money after the age of 60, you can get 60% amount in a lump sum while the rest 40% will be saved to buy an annuity. In case of death, your 100% of the amount will be available to the nominee or legal heir of the subscriber.

The government’s idea behind the new pension scheme is to make every retiree independent and self-willed. Those who want to make their retirement the awe-inspiring and amazing days of their life can start investing in the NPS scheme. Since it’s a government initiative, there is a sure shot guarantee of receiving the withdrawal amount when you need it the most. The eligibility criteria to apply for the New Pension Scheme include:-

1. You must be a citizen of India.
2. You must make at least one contribution in a year to keep the scheme active.
3. You must be at least 18 years of age to contribute in the NPS.

4. The maximum age to sign up for NPS is 60 years.

Savings Schemes in Post Office Which You Should be Aware of

The Indian Postal System was set up more than 150 years ago by the British Raj during the pre-independence period of India. It was truly a remarkable achievement for the period considering the diversity of terrain that made India so unique also made setting up an efficient pan-India system of delivering letters that much more difficult. As a result of its reach to the most remote corners of the country, the Indian Post Office diversified from the simple delivery of letters at a later date to include a range of services such as handling and distributing financial products. This foray into financial products has continued post-independence and now at certain post offices, you can easily avail mutual fund investments apart from a range of savings products. In the following sections, we will discuss which are best saving schemes in Post Office. 

Monthly Income Scheme

The monthly income scheme is one of the most commonly availed post office savings schemes available in India. This requires the establishment of a separate account with tenure of 5 years and this account can be easily transferred from one post office in India to another. Deposits can be made either via cheque or draft and there is no limit on the number of these accounts that an individual can open at any post office across India. The monthly deposit scheme can also be opened for a minor by the parent or a legal guardian, while joint account facility is also available in this case. The current rate of interest offered under this scheme is 7.6% annually with interest payable every month. In case of premature encashment, available interest rate is deducted by 2% or less.

Time Deposit (TD) Account

This is the post office variant of the 80C tax saver fixed deposit scheme, provided the tenure of the deposit is at least 5 years. TD schemes of shorter tenure operate much like bank fixed deposits however the rate of interest offered is usually slightly higher than those offered by leading Indian banks. There is no limit on the number of Time Deposit Accounts that an individual can open and these can be sole operated or jointly operated account as per the requirement of the account holder(s). Currently, the interest rate offered by Post Office Time Deposit Accounts can range from 6.9% to 7.7% depending on the tenure. The minimum deposit allowed in the scheme for tenure of up to 5 years is Rs. 200, while there is no maximum limit on this. It is notable that 80C benefits are applicable only up to Rs. 1.5 lakhs annually. 

National Savings Certificate

When determining which are best saving schemes in Post Office, the most often missed one by far is the National Savings Certificate. Considered to be much less effective way to generate savings in the current scenario, these certificates were savings instruments of choice in the recent past. With little to no risk associated with them, these were and continue to be a source of guaranteed savings. The tenure of each certificate is 5 to 6 years depending upon the tranche and the minimum amount that can be invested yearly is Rs. 100. In the most recent version of NSC, the certificate denominations on offer were Rs. 100, Rs. 500, Rs. 1000, Rs. 5000 and Rs. 10000. As of the 1st quarter of 2017 financial year, the interest rate on offer is 8.1%, which is compounded on a quarterly basis. Moreover, there is the facility of premature withdrawal after completion of a 3 year period from date of initial investment or in case of demise of the certificate holder. 

The post office savings schemes mentioned above are but three among the many savings schemes that are currently on offer. In fact, even though PPF, Sukanya Samriddhi, savings account, Kisan Vikas Patra, etc. have not been mentioned in the list of which are best saving schemes in Post Office, their importance cannot possibly be overstressed. This is mainly because the key strength of the post office is its reach and its ability to provide world-class savings schemes and financial services to even the mostly unbanked and often severely unbanked rural population of India.

How to Get your Bank Statement in CSV Format

A CSV format stands for “Comma Separated Values” file that is used to save the data in table structured format such as spreadsheet or database. Files saved in CSV format are plain text containing numbers and letters only. These files are generally used to exchange data, usually when the file contains a large amount. Analytical software, database programs, and other such applications which contain a large amount of information such as contacts or consumer data are usually supported by the CSV format. CSVs files look like a garden-variety spreadsheet with a .csv extension. The data stored in CSV format is often separated or delimited by commas.

Files saved in CSV format can be used in any spreadsheet program such as Google spreadsheets, Microsoft excel, Open Office Calc, etc. CSV format differ from other spreadsheet file types as it cannot have multiple sheets in a file and cannot have rows, columns. Besides this, it cannot save cell or formulas also.

Characteristics of CSV format:-

· Each record has one line

· Fields are separated by commas

· Space-characters next to commas are ignored

· Double quote characters separate the fields having in-built commas

· Double quotes should surround the fields having double quote characters

· Each inbuilt double quote must be characterised by a pair of consecutive quotes

· Double quotes are also used for the fields which contain in built line-breaks.

Advantages of CSV format

When it comes to bank statements, CSV format is considered more convenient as it is easy to understand and can be manually edited. It is simpler for implementing and analysing in CSV format as compared to other formats such as txt, xml or pdf. It is smaller in size hence easy to handle, banks transactions can be easily read and understood under CSV format. If you save your bank statement under xml format, you would need to start tag and end tag for each column and row. But in CSV format, you just need write column headers only once. However, the data saved in CSV format has no distinction between numeric values and texts.

How to save your bank statement in CSV format:

Saving your bank statement in CSV format in very easy, for instance, if you have to save your ICICI credit card statement in CSV format then you just need to follow the following steps:

1. Login to your ICICI net banking account
2. Click on credit cards tab
3. Download your bank’s statement
4. Open the downloaded statement in the spreadsheet program (i.e. pdf format, xml format, txt format, tab format or MT940 format)
5. Click on File tab and choose Save As Under Save as tab, choose CSV (Comma delimited) format. Click Save.