Number Portabiliy and Dual SIM phones

Mobile number protability is the next of services to be lauched , But in our country where more than 90% of the mobile phone subscribers are post paid customers , not sure if this is really going to be such big game changer . Well i do see one product , whose purchase may be severely dented going forward , the Dual SIM mobile phone .

I have been a mobile phone user for ten years ( Intially it costed Rs.4/min to call and Rs.2/min to receive a call ) but never felt the need to either carry more than one mobile nor for a dual SIM phone . But for some reason this species of phone has been a huge hit , forcing even market leader Nokia to reluctantly introduce dual SIM phones .

We just have to wait and watch how much churn of subscribers will this new service cause . May the operators with strongest signals survive !!! .

Well , when on this topic , IDEA cellular, seems to be the only operator looking forward to this service. Kind of liked their new number portability Ads..but don't think i'am going to change my operator anytime soon .

Image : FreeDigitalPhotos.net,Photographer: Francesco Marino

Using your Airline Miles

I had occasion to travel abroad a few years back . After the end of my travel, one of things i had done was to enroll in the loyalty program of the airlines .

But one of the things that i noticed was that, thought i had lots of miles with me , I did not have much option of utilizing those miles, either i may use them during my next travel ( i never travelled after that ) or else use it on the airlines website to purchase some stuffs , this was a problem too as most of the stuff would be shipped from abroad , hence would be subjected to customs and other duties .

It was about a year back that while i was browing casually , i noticed that there were websites in India , which were letting you purschase and pay using those airline miles . This was something great , as it opened a whole new way of shopping.

The airline i used was Lufthansa and web site i finally used those miles on was http://shopping.indiatimes.com/

So whenever you travel , make sure you do enroll and save those miles . you never know when you can use them
Image : FreeDigitalPhotos.net,Photographer: jscreationzs

Saving without Goals

I have been reading a lot of articles across blogs about goal based saving . I agree it may be easier to save when you kind of know what you are saving for .

But i have a problem with this . I believe many of us know that we have A GOAL we would like to accomplish but are not clear of when we would like to hit that goal . Lets say buying a house , we may all want to buy one , but may be unsure when or where . Would that mean we should not be saving or not know how much to save .

I think it would be a far better idea to make saving in itself a goal . May be trying to save a certain percentage of your salary or Income as a goal may be a far better strategy . Say i would like to save 30% of my income

Another positive of this strategy would be that , you would start being more value conscious , as every penny you save would be a step towards your goal .

Image : FreeDigitalPhotos.net,Photographer: renjith krishnan

CIBIL

With increasing rate of defaults of loans , the Government and RBI felt the need for a mechanism where by the credit worthiness of a borrower could be found , so that risk involved in lending to that person or institution could be better assessed.

This was when CREDIT INFORMATION BUREAU (INDIA) LIMITED [CIBIL] was formed , which would collect data from a crossection of lenders and then share it with Banks, Financial Institutions, Non Banking Financial Companies, Housing Finance Companies and Credit Card Companies.

The collection of data is done using PAN details and such other uniquely identifiable atributes of the borrower . So before a lender lends any loan , he would first get a report from CIBIL about this borrower , see if there are any other liabilities for this borrower and then try to take a much better informed decision .

For a individual ,it is possible to get a copy of their own Credit report either from a Financial institutuion where they have applied for a loan or directly from CIBIL

CIBIL website can be accessed at http://www.cibil.com/

Image : FreeDigitalPhotos.net,Photographer: Salvatore Vuono

Begining of End of Teaser Home loans

Teaser Home loans are those home loans that would be initally ( for first 2 or 3 years ) offered at a low rate of interest and then the rate of interest would be increased to the prevailing market rate, which is definitely higher.

The problem with Teaser Home loan was that , the initial low rate of interest kind of gave the borrower a false sense of confidence that , they can borrow more and also that they can repay the loan without much problem . But it would be only after the initial teaser period is over that , the borrower realises that , he actually would have to shell out much more, as Interest rates are from then on ( may be for next 12 - 18 years ) at a much higher rate .

What this does is , there are higher risk of borrower defaulting on his payments as he start feeling he does not have the repayment capacity at the higher rate of interest , thus making teaser loans a high risk lending for the banks .

But despite this banks had continued with teaser rates , as they wanted to increase their loan disbursements . But now with RBI stepping in and increasing teaser rates loans risk weightage , banks have to keep aside a bigger amount of money , for every teaser loan disbursed , thus making it less attarctive for bank to continue with teaser rates home loans.

This is welcome move from RBI .

Image : FreeDigitalPhotos.net,Photographer: renjith krishnan

Before Memory Fades

I'am currently reading this amazing autobiogaraphy of Fali S Nariman "Before Memory Fades" and in the realm of this i find another instance of JRD Tata's thoughtfulness . Since Air India was a Tata Enterprise , which Government of India Nationalised ( Or rather flew to ruins) , Mr Tata was still at the helm of affairs for quite some time and he had instructed his staff that, any time Mother Theresa were to travel by Air India , Mother would always be accommodated in Business Class and at the end of the flight , she needs to be presented with all the chocolates and other eatables which childeren can use, neatly wrapped .

Intend to keep this post going. adding more of this great man's thoughtfulnesses

Image : FreeDigitalPhotos.net,Photographer: Simon Howden

How to stop an ECS

Have you ever tried to stop an ECS mandate that you might have given for a credit card payment or may be to a mobile phone bill payment .. Well i know of few who had quite a experinece .

Well i intend to tell, how to go about

Step -1 : Approach your service provider with a written copy of a letter clearly stating you intend to cancel the ECS mandate , mention all relevant details and make sure you get an acknowledgement from the service provider for your request , either through email or a letter

Step -2 : Approach your bank , where the ECS is registered and given a letter clearly stating your intent to stop the ECS. If in case Bank tries to inform you that you must approach your service provider show them the acknowledgement from the service provider .

Step - 3: In case the Bank still refuses to accept your request for ECS cancellation , then you need to tell them , there is a clear gideline from RBI , which states
"for action on the withdrawal instruction by the bank branches, it is not necessary for the bank branch to obtain a confirmation from the user institution. The user institution is not supposed to include transaction in the ECS file on receipt of withdrawal notice and for any reason, if the transaction gets included in the ECS file, it may be dealt in a way ‘stop payment’ instructions are handled in the cheque clearing mechanism."

What this means is that ECS cancellation requests must be accepted by banks from its customer , irrespective of the approval of the service provider and must treat all future ECS request from the service provider as a "Stop Payments"

This is not a new giudeline , but something , that has been around for a long time , check this for more details.
http://tinyurl.com/2bcdoal

Stop Sign by Robert Kraft