New Symbol for Indian Rupee

The Government of India has invited the public to suggest a symbol for the Indian Rupee. Just as the Dollar is universally denoted by $‚ the government thinks that the Rupee should also have its own unique symbol that captures a sense of India’s history and culture.

ToI has put up a list of symbols for Rupee on their website and would present the top voted ones before the government. They also have an option through which people can suggest a different symbol.

You could also vote for one of those symbols or can also send in your suggestions. Personally, I prefer ‘ru’ written in Sanskrit/Hindi without a bar on top. Long time our currency had a symbol of its own.

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Is Average Quarterly Balance Fine ripping us off?

In India, most of the private sector banks charge a hefty fine on their customers for not maintaining the required Average Quarterly Balance (AQB) amount in their savings accounts. When the AQB itself is quite high at 10,000 rupees for most of the private banks, the fine comes to more than 800 rupees (including surcharge) and is not a small amount by any means.

To have a comparison with other countries, in Singapore, the amount banks generally charge for not maintaining the monthly average balance is 2 Singapore Dollars, which comes to around 65 Indian Rupees. And that means the AQB fine banks charge in India is 12 times that of in Singapore!!

With the AQB amount made double that of what it was previously, the probability of a person defaulting on it also increases. And when the fine is levied on a huge number of customers, it results in tremendous income for the banks, probably what they are eying at.

I guess it’s high time that the Reserve Bank of India intervenes and put an end to this day time robbery, like it put a cap on ATM withdrawal fee a year back.

In the mean time, what we can do is,
1. Have less number of savings accounts as possible with private banks
2. Move your savings accounts to nationalized banks, that have lower AQB and charge less default fee

Meanwhile, this link shows how the average quarterly balance is calculated by banks.

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How to protect yourself from credit card theft or loss?

Credit card/debit card theft or loss may happen to anyone, anywhere, any time. To its worst case, consider a situation where a theft or loss of your wallet happens when you have traveled along with your family to a foreign city and all that you have with you is a little cash for your daily expenses! And that the wallet contains your credit/debit cards, travel documents, travel tickets etc.

The stolen or lost card could end up in mischievous hands and we have been hearing stories of what all happen afterwards. Generous swipings, exorbitant buyings and what not! And the loss of travel documents and tickets would be another nightmare. So is there a service to tackle this? To protect us from the trauma associated with a card loss?

Card Protection is a new service offered in India, which helps credit card customers from the ordeal associated with credit card or debit card loss or theft. In collaboration with CPP Assistance Services, banks such as Kotak Mahindra, Citibank, Standard Chartered, HSBC etc. are offering card protection service for theft and loss for their customers who opt for the service for a nominal fee. A customer can register all his cards, not just the bank's ones, for the service.

All financial and non-financial cards (credit, debit, loyalty cards etc.), fraud protection insurance, emergency hotel and travel assistance, emergency cash assistance etc. are covered under this service. A person who had lost his wallet will just have to call the helpdesk of CPP and they will do the rest; like contacting all the respective banks to block his cards, arranging for the money etc. I guess it’s a good service one can opt for especially the ones who are constantly on the move.

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How to file Income Tax returns online

Income Tax Department of India facilitates a tax payer to file his Income Tax returns online through their website. It is an easy process and following are the steps involved according to IT department website,

1. Select appropriate type of Return Form from the website (ITR-1/ITR-2/ITR-3/ITR-4)

2. Download and install Return Preparation Software for the selected Return Form

3. Fill return offline and generate XML file

4. Register and create a user id (PAN) and password at the website

5. Login and click on relevant form on left panel and select "Submit Return"

6. Browse to select XML file and click on "Upload" button

7. On successful upload acknowledgement details would be displayed. Click on "Print" to generate printout of acknowledgement/ITR-V Form

8. Incase the return is digitally signed; on generation of "Acknowledgement" the Return Filing process gets completed. You may take a printout of the Acknowledgement for your record

9. Incase the return is not digitally signed, on successful uploading of e-Return, the ITR-V Form would be generated which needs to be printed by the tax payers. This is an acknowledgement cum verification form. The tax payer has to fill-up the verification part and verify the same. A duly verified ITR-V form should be submitted with the local Income Tax Office within 15 days of filing electronically. This completes the Return filing process for non-digitally signed Returns

Here is the link to IT Department's eFiling website.

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How to check whether your employer/financial institution have deposited your TDS?

Most of the new age companies deduct income tax before giving salary to the employees (Tax Deduction at Source or TDS). TDS is also done by banks and other financial institutions for returns on fixed deposits, short term gains on equities etc. How do you check whether the tax deducted from you through TDS have been paid to the exchequer by your company or the financial institution?

Tax Information Network (TIN) of Income Tax department, Government of India facilitates a PAN holder to view annual tax statement (Form 26AS) online.

It’s very straight forward involving few simple steps
1. You have to register your PAN number online
2. Get it verified by TIN
3. Start checking tax credit online

The verification can be done by either going to the nearest TIN-Facilitation Centre or asking them to visit your address. There is a small fee for the one time authorization. Rs 15 + service tax if the PAN holder visits the TIN-Facilitation Centre in person or Rs. 100 + service tax if the PAN holder opts for the TIN employee to visit him and do the verification.

This is the link to do it.

RBI recommends free ATM usage

Most of the banks charge a considerable amount to its customers when they use ATM facilities of a different bank to do transactions on their accounts. I myself have paid amounts to the tune of Rs. 61.80 (Usage Fee: Rs. 55.00, Service Tax: Rs. 6.60, Education Cess: Rs. 0.20) for such usages I have made. Part of this usage fee is paid to the bank whose ATM is been used. Considering the costs involved, I always felt that this is an obscene amount.

The irony is even if one withdraws Rs. 100, he has to pay Rs. 61.80 as usage charge. I wonder why the banks are not charging the usage charge as a percentage of the money being withdrawn, while they charge based on percentage for various other services. For example, processing fee for a service such as Balance Transfer on credit card is a percentage of the amount being transferred. The bank would say that despite the quantity of money being withdrawn from an ATM, the service is used anyway, which involves the same set of procedures and that’s why it’s a fixed charge. But here, my question is, how is it different for the processing fee on balance transfer? Isn’t the service being used and the efforts involved are same for various balance transfer amounts? But then one doesn't need to think too much to understand why the banks charge in percentage for services involving higher amounts!

Thus, reading the minds of millions of bank users of India, the RBI has directed the banks to allow free access to ATMs by April 2009. By March 2008 banks that are charging more than Rs. 20 for using a different banks' ATM will have to bring down the charge to Rs. 20. Also, balance enquiry has to be made available free of cost across all ATMs. In order to bring in transparency to the banking system, RBI has also urged the banks to inform their customers before hand, the amount they shall pay for withdrawing money from a different bank's ATM, which would discourage the customers from using a different bank's ATM.

The RBI has also pointed out that in other countries such as UK, Germany and France, customers can access all ATMs in the country, other than the ones managed by non-banks, free of charge. With this move, the Indian banking system is set for a revolution and importantly more customer focussed, it seems.

500% increase in complaints against banks

Reserve Bank of India says the number of customer complaints against banks (public and private) filed with them increased by over 500% in the 12 months between July 2006 and June 2007. The figure stands at 34,499 as compared to 5772 in the 12 months before.

Leading the pack are SBI and ICICI bank and the majority of the complaints are related to credit cards. I guess this is the result of customers becoming more aware about their rights. It also shows the need of huge improvements in the processes followed by banks. A bank official says, “People now complain at the drop of a hat”. But I feel if this was the case then the number of complaints would have seen no end.

Let’s hope that this would make the banks think a bit more about serving their customers in a customer-friendly manner.