Investment...!?!

Today after a business meeting, when I handed over my Business Card to a new acquaintance, he examined it for a while and came with a question
‘Do you provide consultancy for financial strategy as well…?’

His question stroked a chord that was lying underneath my routine practice and I started reexamining my teachings, indirectly but not unintentionally, focused at I-N-V-E-S-T-M-E-N-T…!

Well from today let’s have a discussion about some financial awareness as well. After all ‘It is all about Money, Honey…!’

There are no free lunches, no easy money. Yet people often become victim of 'double-your-money' or 'earn-lifetime-income' schemes. Here's how to identity and avoid such MLM schemes.

Nothing comes free in this world, especially money. The universal truth is you need to earn your money by hard labour all the time and there are no shortcuts to double it in the shortest span of time. Therefore, even if your near and dear ones tell you he/she will double, triple, quadruple your money within a few days/months, politely reply to them that it is not possible and what they are advocating is a pure 'get-rich-quick' type of scam.

How does one judge whether a scheme is genuine or a scam? It's simple. Check the interest rate being offered by banks, especially public sector banks like the State Bank of India, Union Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, and so on. At present, these banks pay 4% interest a year on savings bank accounts. Second, check the interest rate on the public provident fund (PPF). Currently the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) controlled interest rate on PPF is at 8% and for the Employees' Provident Fund (EPF) it is 9.5% per annum. Many people consider investment in EPF/PPF as the best and safest debt instrument.

The interest rates offered by banks and EPFO are an indication of the viable minimum and maximum expected returns on investments. In other words, you could say that your investment should give you a safe return of a minimum 4% and a maximum 9.5%, at least in 2011.

Therefore, anyone or any scheme that offers you more than this must be looked at very carefully and a thorough scrutiny must be done before investing one's hard-earned money. Unfortunately, this happens rarely, as most of the time the person approaching you with a high-returns scheme is either your close relative or a friend, whom you find difficult to say no. Remember, all scams, frauds that have happened in the past are known to have spread through the link of near and dear ones.

The first rule on investments is that if you do not understand how the instrument works don't sink your funds into it. This applies to all schemes that promise 'guaranteed income' and 'fast and huge returns' within a short time. In financial investment terms all such schemes are huge risks.

Stay tuned and tomorrow we will talk about M-L-M...!