Assured Return alternatives in Investment

Safety of investment refers to getting income or capital appreciation or both at the pre-determined time span without any hazzles

That means, it has broadly three components: the money part, the time involved and the last, but the most important one, the ease of handling

1. The post office saving schemes are the nearest one to anybody by the sheer number of offices across the country. Variety of schemes are available ranging from savings, recurring, fixed deposits and monthly  income plans. You get senior citizen schemes and national saving certificates from post office.
one generally requires the following at the time of opening the account itself.

• Address Proof
• Two passport size photographs
• Identity Proof – This may include

         i)  Passport

        ii) PAN Card

       iii) Ration Card

       iv) Voter Identity Card issued by the Election Commission of India

 2. Bank Deposits are another product in the assured return category. Bank deposits are safe to the extent of insurance guaranty available to the bank subject to Rs 1 lakh per account. Indian banks are mostly govt owned and RBI controls all banks with strict control and supervision. A comparison of rates available with the banks show that the time periods are kept different for look alike products.

3. Guaranteed return plans from Insurance companies offer 4% to 8% . One should make clear what really is important what risk one wants to cover while buying such products. purely from an investment angle, they may not be attractive. But the risk profile may require one to cover in such cases, insurance plans are a better alternative.
Still another variant is the highest NAV guarateed products offered by Insurance companies as they are not goverened by SEBI, but IRDA.
4. Capital Protection Oriented funds from  mutual funds

SAFETY IN NUMBERS

	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013
Existing schemes	12	13	42	58	71
New schemes launched	0	7	30	22	26
Assets of new schemes (Rcrore)		1358	2390	1538	1910

Such schemes gave rate of return approximately equal to 1-2 years bank deposits.

5. Public Provident Funds are another investment alternative for differing time periods with assured rate of return. they are serviced from the post offices.
6. NBFCs offer several options
Make sure that you are dealing with RBI approved NBFC only. RBI has asked NBFCs to prominently display the CoR issued by the central bank on their website. If an NBFC is authorized to accept public deposits, the certificate reflects that. And safely keep the Fixed Deposit Receipt for future purposes. At times, when banks are not able to provide more than the inflation rate, NBFCs come handy.
7. Company Fixed Deposits

There are times when company FDs are better alternatives to bank FDs.

one thing is for sure. the moment one seeks assured returns, the rate offered is lesser than capital market alternatives like equity/bonds issued by companies. When more rate is offered, take adequate precautions.

Happy investing