She made the audience aware about the most common misconception about financial products. People relate financial products with consumer products because they are not hard-wired to understand the nitty-gritties of the financial world. Ms Dalal shared an important concept called cognitive Impairment. It says that seniors are more susceptible to fraud and are easily targeted by sales agents. This was supported by research figures from, US Federal Trade commission – 80% of scam victims in US are above 65 years of age. Elder financial abuse costs US senior citizens more than $2.6 billion a year says MetLife Mature Market Institute.
She said that one has to be careful to select a bank. Government banks are safe and cooperative banks are under dual regulations – RBI and Department of Cooperative Societies. Neither of them regulate properly. She gave a few banking tips to the participants about how to keep their money safe. She shared a story about a 79-year old man Mangelal Sharma, who was cheated by IndusInd Bank, which Moneylife has written about.
In the second session, Mr Basu explained retirement planning which can be very complicated. There are hundreds of financial products available. Along with this, the concerns of investors differ from before retirement stage to post-retirement stage. A retired individual would be more interested to know about where to put the corpus, expected return from corpus, tax implications, how long the savings will last, how much and when to withdraw from principal etc.
For the fixed income part, based on their individual tax-bracket, one can invest in a mix of banks FDs, corporate FDs, corporate bonds or non-convertible debentures, tax-free bonds and short-term debt funds. The different investment options needs to be evaluated for parameters such as safety, ease of investment, post-tax returns, liquidity and interest payment options. Each investment option was discussed in detail for its advantages and disadvantages. You can’t get best of everything in one instrument and hence there are good reasons to understand all the options and allocate your money in different options based on your risk appetite, Mr Basu pointed out.
Inside story of the National Stock Exchange’s amazing success, leading to hubris, regulatory capture and algo scam

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This means access to other articles (outside the subscription period) are not included.
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X was an NRI and had a NRI account and NRO Joint account (either or survivor) with his wife and wife also had resident account in her name in a well known Multinational Bank.
X remitted his hard earned Dollar savings into NRI A/C from where he invested in Mutual Fund in joint name (either or survivor) and designated his NRI account for redemption proceeds. Wife taking advantage of his absence in India, gave self signed redemption slip along with change of Bank Mandate to NRO account. Mutual fund company as per law credited redemption proceeds to NRO account.Next she went to Bank and transferred the money from NRO to her resident account and deserted her house with the booty. X came to know and on his return from abroad filed a criminal case againt wife. But the Court remarked that Joint Account of whatsoever nature is equally owned by the Joint holders hence she had not committed any Banking Fraud. However criminal Breach of trust was recognised. X eventually got his money back.
Just to inform that Financial Planners often say to keep accounts in Joint Mode. But I feel that single mode with Nomination will be best option for retirees who have even a small doubt that close relatives may not be trustworthy.