Archives for April 2023

Factors determining the Deposit Account rates

Fixed Deposits are a secure investment for risk-averse investors and offer higher interest than Savings Accounts. They are more secure than the stock market, gold, jewellery, and real estate. It also helps you reduce the risk in the investment portfolio. Even though they are fixed-income instruments, the banks alter the FD interest rates time and again.

Various macroeconomic factors adopted by the Reserve Bank of India influence them, leading to banks countering the adverse effects. It is well-known that banks take deposits from depositors and Saving Account holders and lend them to borrowers.

How do banks operate?

Other than depositors, banks also borrow at the Repo Rate from the RBI. Vice versa, they also lend money to the RBI at an interest rate known as the reverse repo rate. The RBI controls the economy through bank lending. A change in the repo or reverse repo rates may change consumption and spending patterns.

How do interest rates fluctuate?

Various factors play a key role in changing the FD rates. While they remain stable throughout the tenure, you should be aware of the factors responsible:

Demand and supply

Consumer spending habits affect demand and supply. If the consumers borrow less, it means there is less demand in the market. If the borrowers reduce, banks resort to reducing the interest rate paid to their depositors. If the demand rises, banks increase the interest rates on their Deposit Accounts to attract more depositors and increase their funds to lend.

Inflation

If there is high inflation in the economy, the RBI takes measures to reduce it. Usually, inflation increases when the demand is more than the supply, leading to an increase in prices. Thus, the RBI will increase the repo rates, making it costly for the banks to borrow from them to control the demand. Banks will resort to borrowing from the public by increasing the RD interest rates to encourage savings and invest more.

CRR and SLR

Cash Reserve Ratio is the amount that the banks are required to keep with the RBI. Statutory Liquid Ratio is the amount that banks should maintain with themselves in the form of gold, liquid cash, and other securities. If there is a hike, banks keep more deposits with the RBI and may resort to increasing the interest rates.

Liquidity

If the banks have adequate liquidity, they do not require funds from the public to lend to the borrowers. Therefore, they will not change the Fixed Deposit interest rates. If they face a liquidity crisis, they may increase the rates to attract funds to continue their lending activities.

Conclusion

Digital Banking is safe, hassle-free, and quick. You can also check and compare the interest rates on the Banking app for convenience. Opening a high-interest Deposit Account is preferable as it leads to better returns and corpus accumulation.

3 Tips For Getting Kids Excited About Learning History

If you have a love of history yourself and want to be able to share this same love of the past with your kids, you might want to shy away from just having them read dry books or watch boring movies about things that happened before they were born. Rather, you may need to get creative with the ways you go about having history make an impact on your little ones.

To help you see how this can be done, here are three tips for getting kids excited about learning history.

Start With History That Interests Them

When many kids think about history, they think about learning specific facts about specific times or events that don’t really interest them. However, if you ask your kids, there are likely all kinds of things about history that interest them, even if they don’t realize that it’s part of history. Knowing this, you should get them more interested in history in general by starting with the parts of history that interest them.

If you find that your kids love dinosaurs, start with this period of time in history. If they have an interest in airplanes, boats, or trains, introduce them to the times in history when these modes of transportation were flourishing. And if they know of someone from history that they are a big fan of, like Michale Jordan or knights of the roundtable, talk about the history of these people and the times in which they were living.

Focus On Their Connection To History

Something else that can help your kids feel more interested in history is to learn how certain things in history connect to them and to your family.

If you still have grandparents or great-grandparents living, consider speaking with them about what things were like when they were little. You can also learn more about where your family came from, what their culture was like, and how they may have lived. And, if you have family members who were associated with big historical events, like the Civil Rights Movement or the Mayflower, teach your kids about these people and this period of time.

Make History Hands-On

History doesn’t have to just be something that you read in a book or watch on a video. So many parts of history can be seen and even experienced to a degree by your kids. If you live close to a historical site or want to travel to one, this could be a great way to get some hands-on experience with history. You can also visit museums and other exhibits that show things from the past.

If you want to have kids who love learning about history, consider using the tips mentioned above to find ways to make it more interesting for them.