Guides on personal loans, home loans, education loans, credit cards, interest rates, eligibility, benefits, and common mistakes.
A repo rate hike of 25 basis points does not add 0.25% to every EMI overnight. A 25-basis-point rise in the RBI’s repo rate does not add 0.25% to every EMI overnight, but on a floating-rate home loan linked to an external benchmark it usually feeds through at the next reset. On a ₹50 lakh…
The credit card billing cycle decides your float. A credit card’s interest-free period is not “up to 50 days” for every purchase you make. It is the gap between the purchase date and the payment due date that follows the next statement. Buy something a day after the statement is generated, and you may get…
The most common mistake with a home loan prepayment happens at the bank counter, after the money is already arranged. Asked whether the payment should reduce the EMI or the tenure, many borrowers pick a lower EMI because it feels like immediate relief. On a typical long loan, that choice gives up most of the…
Neha lost her job in Pune in March 2026 with ₹3.2 lakh still outstanding on a personal loan. By August the bank’s recovery team was offering a one-time settlement: pay ₹1.9 lakh and the bank would give up the remaining ₹1.3 lakh. It sounds like a clean exit. The catch is what a loan settlement…
Suresh runs a hardware shop in Jaipur and pays a car loan EMI of ₹21,500 on the 10th of every month. In June 2026 a supplier paid him late and the EMI bounced. Nothing seemed to happen that week, but the bank’s system had already started counting. That count decides when his loan moves through…
Personal loan interest rates at India’s large banks start at 9.99% a year at ICICI Bank and Axis Bank, 10.00% at SBI, 10.50% at HDFC Bank and 10.99% at Kotak Mahindra Bank, according to their websites on 3 October 2026. Those are starting rates. The average rate ICICI Bank actually charged on personal loans disbursed…
Two colleagues in Bengaluru spend about the same every month: around ₹12,000 online across Amazon, Flipkart and a few other sites, and another ₹8,000 in shops. One earns roughly ₹440 a month back on her card. The other earns ₹680 on his. The difference is the card, and in a festive month, when that ₹12,000…
Riya bought a ₹30,000 phone last Diwali on a six-month no cost EMI. She expected six bills of ₹5,000 each. Her first credit card statement showed ₹5,000, plus a processing fee, plus GST on that fee, plus a smaller GST line she couldn’t place. None of it was large. All of it surprised her, because…
A ₹50 lakh home loan at 7.5% for 20 years costs ₹40,280 a month. If the Reserve Bank of India raises the repo rate by 25 basis points on 7 October and the bank passes it on in full, the same EMI becomes ₹41,047. That ₹767 difference is the smallest version of the home loan…
A bank or card company must close your credit card within seven working days of your request once all dues are paid, and pay you ₹500 for every calendar day of delay after that. It cannot make you send the request by post, and it must tell you by email or SMS once the card…