housing loan…

One of the kids in the office said ‘I am planning to buy a house….what should I look for?’ I said house – I have no clue, but have friends in Hdfc and I can give you their numbers…and they may be able to help on the builder feed back… She said….No, no, I have [...]

State of the Mutual Fund Industry…

Vijay Venkatram of wealth forum …has done a detailed analysis of the mutual fund industry. He is asking a question uppermost in most people’s mind -are the men getting separated from the boys? Personally I wish he had done an analysis with just the equity fund – as one of the tables- which could perhaps [...]

Dramatic and far reaching changes…

  If you are a shareholder who started an asset management company and /or a life insurance company hoping to make money, God bless you! For those of us who are shareholders with the Birla, Hdfc, Tata groups – remember we are all funding the insurance and mutual fund businesses indirectly. Kotak bank, Hdfc ltd, [...]

MBA: Job opportunities!

Is the financial service industry doing anything for society? I mean is there a VALUE ADD or is it just getting more and more out of the value adding channel? Not sure? Ask MBA colleges – the financial service industry is a big saviour. Whether it be ICICI, Hdfc, Kotak, Indiainfoline, – all their arms [...]

Debt Market lessons

Training as a CA has many advantages (and a few disadvantages perhaps). One of the advantages is you get skeptical about numbers, and you get to question conclusions/views drawn from numbers. I remember one life insurance company giving me their settled claims to received claims ratio. Smartly it included maturity claims, investment products, pension plans….suddenly [...]

Ulips : Irda wins turf battle with sebi

In what was being seen as a turf battle between sebi and irda, the winner as of now seems to be Irda. It shows the power of the people in the life Insurance business. Now if you have LIC, SBI, Hdfc, Icici, …each with a few ’000 crores of stake in the insurance business and [...]