Get your financial freedom back Debt is in the news right now, but it’s not just Indian banks that are accumulating it. Ordinary Indians are seeing a big jump in their loans and debt payments. The average debt per rural family has jumped from Rs 7,500 in the last decade to Rs 32,500 now, a growth of 300%. Average debt in urban homes has gone up from Rs. 11,700 in the same period to Rs 85,000, a jump of 600%. Personal debts and loans are a problem many people find hard to talk about. But it’s important to get past the embarrassment - this is a common issue for many. And the lessons you learn in managing your debt well are valuable, ones that will help you manage money better in the future. How do you manage your debt? There are a few things you can do. STEP 1: Find out your CIBIL score If you are struggling to pay off a current loan, find out if you can get on a better plan or transfer your loan. The first step here is to find out your CIBIL score. The CIBIL score is something banks and loan providers check to see if they can lend you money with confidence. A good CIBIL score is anything above 750/900. You can find out the score through an online application on their website. Knowing your CIBIL score will help you assess whether you will qualift for a loan with better terms at your current bank or another bank. STEP 2. Negotiate payment terms on existing loans Speak to your bank with you CIBIL score in hand, to find out the best payment terms you can get. Also research other banks to see if there's a fairer loan on offer - you can then transfer your loan from your current provider. STEP 3. Take your credit cards out of your wallet/purse While you are resolving your loans, it’s important to remove the chances of accumulating additional debt on your credit cards. Make it as difficult as possible to pull out your credit card in order to spend. Put the cards deep inside a drawer, lock the cupboard, and keep the key somewhere far out of reach, so that you have to go through at least three steps to get your card. Or seal up the cards in several layers of paper and tape so that you will have to spend time opening up everything each time you have to use the card. Freeze your cards in a water container. Basically, you want to make it difficult for your future self to impulsively buy something. STEP 4: Identify your spending triggers. Look through your past bank statements, and debit/credit card records Our memories are faulty. We don’t really remember things all that well, especially things we feel guilty about, like overspending. So open your statements over the past few months and make a list: what were your biggest splurges and expenses? This will give you an understanding of what to watch out for. You don’t want your weaknesses to sneak up on you every time. This will help you stay out of debt in the future. STEP 5. Budgeting apps and software are your friends There are plenty of free budgeting apps out there that help you manage your money better on an ongoing basis. Check out this list for a free app that is suited to your particular needs. These personal finance apps automatically track your statements, help discover the best offers, and split expenses with your friends. STEP 6. Learn new saving hacks You shouldn’t stop having fun. But learn habits that help you make better choices and save, to avoid increases in debt and manage your current payments. Here are some examples of savings hacks: Make a list before going out shopping. It’s a simple step that will compel you to think before impulse buys not on the list. Check your mobile phone plan - can you get a cheaper one? Mobile phone bills often end up as a big part of your monthly spends. Do you enjoy what you currently spend money on? Find out events you can attend besides movies and pub trips, that are fun, like free live music events, art galleries, book clubs, trekking. These usually hurt your wallet less. Use extra cash that comes in to immediately pay off some of the debt you have, and put some money into a fixed deposit or savings instrument. Any additional money is a great chance for you to get yourself into a comfortable position financially. Avoid temptations: Install an adblock so that buying suggestions don't follow you around while browsing. If there's a store you tend to frequent. try a different route, listen to music/podcasts while you travel as a distraction. Gratitude: This is very Zen and known to work. Take a few minutes out everyday to think about what you are thankful for. Our brains are primed to respond to threats and negative triggers: it’s how we survived in the jungle. Noticing the positive requires an active habit, and it helps make you happier with what you already have. These habits are also surprisingly fulfilling. You will find out that it’s possible to have a richer life with a smaller outlay of cash! Good luck.
Who dominates the market, as each competes on price? Game of Thrones is racking up high television ratings, but here on the Indian roads another epic battle is raging. Uber and Ola are fighting to the death for taxi dominance, bringing down their rates and prices, and both claiming to be Numero Uno. It’s hard to know who really is the dominant player. In 2015, Ola had claimed that it had 85% share of the taxi business in India. Uber contradicted Ola a few weeks later, saying that Uber had 40% of the Indian market share in end 2015, up from 4% in January 2015. Then in March this year, Uber’s Eric Alexander claimed that Uber had close to 50% market share, and would beat Ola in market domination by April. By end April however, Ola stated that Ola Micro alone was bigger than all of Uber India combined. Recently however, Truecaller released an analysis of its database of 130 million registered users, and found that 4.1% of all calls were made to Ola, while 1.6% of calls were made to Uber. The question here is a) is the database representative? And b) does this point to coordination problems for customers with Ola drivers, rather than a larger market? The same Truecaller figures are a needle in Ola and Uber’s ballooning numbers. They show 94% of calls were to non Uber or Ola taxis. This could mean that both the so-called Goliaths are actually Davids battling over 6% of the market share. Either way, the companies are slugging it out, cutting taxi prices and offering customers deals. Ola Micro, a small car version that launched in February 2016 is the company’s cheapest offering yet, with the price at Rs 6/km to Uber’s Rs 7/km price. However, Uber’s other offerings, including its minis and sedans are usually cheaper than Ola across India (uber fares and ola fares vary slightly across cities). Uber rates have held steady on average, at Rs 7/km for the Go and Rs 9/km for the sedans. Uber is present in 68 countries, but Uber prices in India are now almost the lowest in the world. It costs around $1.3 to travel for 5 kms in an Uber in India. In England the same distance costs $16, and in Norway it crosses $32 (where only UberBlack is available). Uber sees the Indian market as a crown jewel - customer behavior here is not yet set towards owning cars. Car ownership in India is low compared to developed markets - the US has around 800 cars per 1000 people, in Europe it’s around 500, and in China its approximately 150. India has just 18 cars per 1000 people. Check out our infographic on the Uber Ola battle. We wait in the meantime, for part 2 of the series.
Gender/caste breakups and regional performance The JEE (Advanced) 2016 results were announced yesterday evening, and the summary is below. 52% of qualified candidates are general, and the remaining SC/ST and OBC. 13% of qualified candidates are women. IIT Bombay and IIT Madras lead in zone-wise performance. Check out our infographic below for the analysis.
Research report summary for this week! Six company stocks saw BUY reports from analysts. One stock with ACCUMULATE. Seven stocks came in as HOLD/NEUTRAL. PICK of the week: PNC Infratech Ltd, which has received five price upgrades over the last six months from Angel Broking, HDFC Sec and ICICI Securities. The most recent report from Angel Broking on 8th June 2016 has recommended that investors ACCUMULATE this stock with a new target price of Rs 647(up from Rs 558). The average target price of PNC Infratech from 4 brokers is Rs 674. Date Stock Target Upside Type Price on report date Broker Upgrades/downgrades - last 6 months 2016-06-03 Balaji Amines Limited - BALAMINES 310 +29.44 BUY 221 Nirmal Bang - 2016-06-03 Blue Star Limited - BLUESTARCO 495 +12.5 BUY 415 Angel Broking 1 upgrade till date 2016-06-03 Grindwell Norton Limited - GRINDWELL 780 +14.71 BUY 685 ICICI Securities Limited 2 upgrades till date 2016-06-03 HEG Limited - HEG 150 +0.07 HOLD 149.75 ICICI Securities Limited - 2016-06-03 NHPC Limited - NHPC 23 -6.31 HOLD 24.7 ICICI Securities Limited 1 upgrade till date (target met) 2016-06-03 SML Isuzu Limited - SMLISUZU 1294 +25.63 BUY 1050.5 Karvy - 2016-06-03 Tech Mahindra Limited - TECHM 700 +30.91 BUY 550.2 Angel Broking 1 downgrade till date 2016-06-06 Butterfly Gandhimathi Applia - BUTTERFLY 180 +4.65 HOLD 163.1 ICICI Securities Limited - 2016-06-06 Maharashtra Seamless Limited - MAHSEAMLES 240 +0.84 HOLD 230.95 ICICI Securities Limited - 2016-06-06 Titan Company Limited - TITAN 355 -2.45 NEUTRAL 353 Phillip Capital 2 upgrades till date 2016-06-08 MEP Infrastructure Developer. - MEP 73 +93.12 BUY 39 BOB Capital Markets Ltd. - 2016-06-08 NIIT Technologies Limited - NIITTECH 525 -2.78 HOLD 540 ICICI Securities Limited 2 upgrades till date 2016-06-08 OnMobile Global Limited - ONMOBILE 137 +22.38 HOLD 111.95 Nirmal Bang - 2016-06-08 PNC Infratech Limited - PNCINFRA 647 +13.53 ACCUMULATE 566 Angel Broking 5 upgrades till date
Manage your budgets with this definitive list If you want help managing your money with an app, which one do you go for? Look no further. We go through the most useful apps to manage your money - we examine the big guns, as well as the rising challengers. And one app just had to be mentioned for its unusual approach. THE BIG GUNS Moneyview - Your Money Manager Over 1,000,000 installs Money management and savings options This app creates a full financial summary for you automatically: it auto-tracks your information, adding details based on your financial SMSes and bank statements you get. It gives you bill payment reminders, allows you to track a budget, and identifies savings options to put in your money. The app also claims to be highly secure, not reading any sensitive data - it does not collect your full bank account numbers, no OTP, and no netbanking login/passwords. Link Walnut Money Manager Over 1,000,000 installs The Social Money Manager Another autotracking, autofilling app, so that your fingers don’t hurt. This app has a strong social approach, and assumes you do a lot of spending while out with other people. You can split expenses with friends and also send reminders to the ones who owe you money (including that one guy who always ‘forgets’ his wallet at home). \ You can also look up information about restaurants and events and share with your friends. Also keep track of your taxi and movie bookings: in a way this app acts as your money manager and also your butler. Jeeves knows what’s in your wallet. Link UP AND COMING: Top Contenders SmartSpends: Money Manager App Over 100,000 installs Analytics and offers The SmartSpends app like the others, tracks your spends and financial footprints automatically. It also offers you some interesting analytics: how much did you spend over the weekend compared to weekdays? This app may help you curb your worst party-spender instincts, where you wake up the next day with a splitting headache and an empty wallet. This clever little app also claims to help identify offers on your debit and credit cards, throwing up suggestions on which card to use where. Link Gullak Expense Manager and Money Saver Over 100,000 installs Analytics and offers This app does all the essentials, autotracking, splitting of expenses, providing graphs and charts to know your particular weaknesses when it comes to money. You can manage multiple user accounts and sync across devices. Link MOST INNOVATIVE Mvelopes Budget App Over 50,000 installs Savings, old-school style For sheer inventiveness, Mvelopes takes the cake. The app is based on what your grandma used to do: put money in an envelope, mark it as ‘next month’s groceries’ and keep it inside a locked cupboard. Mvelopes lets you keep money in virtual envelopes for different uses, marking them as EMI payments, shopping bills, school fees, and so on. You get alerts when one envelope is almost empty. It provides real-time budgeting updates and imports your bank and card statements as well. Link That’s the roundup! Keep an eye out for the next FridayList.
A pair of researchers from Fractl, a data-marketing firm, pored over the post-mortems written by founders after their companies shut down, to identify the reasons entrepreneurs think their startups failed. The results are below. The biggest reasons were either unviable business models or startups running out of cash. Fashion companies most often cited money problems - running out of cash or not being able to secure funding - for their failures. Social media companies struggled with traction and creating a viable business model. And software company founders concluded their problems stemmed from focusing too much on the technical aspects of their products and ignoring what customers actually wanted. Source: Quartz
Chart of the Day: Q4 performance of companies left expectations in the dust The market cheered, there was a lot of green in the financial statements this quarter. Overall, actual performance of companies that declared results so far has beaten expectations by a net surplus of Rs 20,900 crore in revenue. Net profits across companies have beaten expectations by a surplus of Rs 2672 crore. Visually you can see some firms saw big spikes - actual performance beating the predictions before results by large amounts. Heavyweights like BPCL, Adani Power, HDFC, and Reliance Industries performed substantially above expectations. Data source: Business Standard
