Nitish Sinha | Money Maths

Maths teacher. I check the numbers behind India’s money rules: loans, CIBIL, EMIs, RBI. Explain, never advise.

[Nitish Sinha | Money Maths @initishkrsinha]

Your home loan rate went up 0.25%. The bank can handle it two ways. One costs you about ₹2.45 lakh. The other costs about ₹8 lakh. Most people end up with the expensive one without being asked.

[Nitish Sinha | Money Maths @initishkrsinha]

Took a loan and the bank added an insurance policy to it? You can ask for the loan rate without the policy. IRDAI has proposed rules that would make lenders show you both rates.

[Nitish Sinha | Money Maths @initishkrsinha]

The detail that caught my eye is phone EMIs now stretching to 30 months. And no cost EMI is rarely fully free. There’s often a processing fee, GST on the interest part, and the cash discount you give up by not paying upfront. Worth asking about all three at the counter before saying yes.

[Nitish Sinha | Money Maths @initishkrsinha]

The one on this list that worries me most is the credit card bill. A home loan at least leaves you with a house. A card balance carried month to month costs around 40 percent a year and leaves you with nothing to show for it. If someone can clear only one, that’s the one to start with.

[Nitish Sinha | Money Maths @initishkrsinha]

@IndiaNewGen That 10 to 15 left at month end is the number nobody talks about. The salary looks big on the CTC letter, smaller on the payslip, and by the 25th it’s gone. The only thing that changes it is moving savings out on salary day itself, before the EMIs and bills get there first.

[Nitish Sinha | Money Maths @initishkrsinha]

Never seen PF on your payslip at a job you’ve had for years? Your employer can still enrol you under EPFO’s Employees’ Enrolment Campaign, but only till tomorrow, 31 October. Ask HR today.

[Nitish Sinha | Money Maths @initishkrsinha]

Jio listed 21% above its IPO price. Sounds huge. On one retail lot of 12 shares, that’s about ₹2,868. With the retail portion booked 2.76 times, not every applicant got even that.

[Nitish Sinha | Money Maths @initishkrsinha]

@b50 Yes, it’s from RBI’s 2022 card rules. If a refund leaves a credit balance above 1 percent of your limit or 5,000 rupees, whichever is lower, the bank has to ask you first. If you don’t say keep it on the card, it goes back to your bank account

[Nitish Sinha | Money Maths @initishkrsinha]

@financewsharan The scary part isn’t the home loan itself, it’s an EMI with no cushion behind it. If you’re already in one, keeping a few months of EMIs aside matters more than any rate cut. And if the job does go, a pause isn’t automatic, banks decide restructuring case by case.

[Nitish Sinha | Money Maths @initishkrsinha]

On a ₹12.75 lakh salary, the new tax regime takes your income tax to zero this year. To match that, the old regime needs ₹7.25 lakh of deductions. Worth adding yours up.

[Nitish Sinha | Money Maths @initishkrsinha]

A wrong entry on your CIBIL report has a deadline attached.

If your complaint isn’t fixed in 30 days, RBI’s rules say you’re owed ₹100 for every day of delay.

It’s one of RBI’s quietest rules.

[Nitish Sinha | Money Maths @initishkrsinha]

SBI passed on RBI’s 0.25% repo hike in 8 days. On a ₹50 lakh, 20-year home loan, 8% to 8.25% means about ₹781 more EMI a month. Is yours on repo or MCLR? Check your sanction letter.

[Nitish Sinha | Money Maths @initishkrsinha]

IRDAI wants to cap what agents earn on each insurance policy. Comments were due today. Reports say it’s now 31 Oct. Until a rule comes, ask your agent: what do you earn on this plan?

[Nitish Sinha | Money Maths @initishkrsinha]

A settled loan can become Closed on your CIBIL report. That part surprises a lot of people.

What surprises them next is that paying the remaining balance doesn’t do it by itself. CIBIL can’t change an accurate record without your lender confirming it. So the lender has to accept your payment as full recovery and report the new status.

That’s why the order matters. Get the closure amount and the lender’s written promise to report Closed first. Pay after. Do it the other way round, and you can clear the money and still see Settled months later.

[Nitish Sinha | Money Maths @initishkrsinha]

@RamThote_ Mostly when a balance transfer offer lands from another bank and the rate looks oddly low. Easiest check: put your statement rate next to the bank’s current home loan rate on its own website. If yours is higher, ask them what spread you’d get today.

[Nitish Sinha | Money Maths @initishkrsinha]

On a ₹50 lakh home loan, a rate just 0.40% higher costs about ₹1,274 more every month.

That’s the gap to check when comparing MCLR and repo-linked loans. How fast each resets matters much less.

[Nitish Sinha | Money Maths @initishkrsinha]

About 30% of floating-rate bank loans in India were still linked to MCLR at the end of March 2026, according to RBI data released on 30 September.

If your home loan is one of them, someone has probably told you to switch to a repo-linked rate. Before you do, it helps to know which part of the decision actually moves the money.

The two loans differ in two ways.

The first is speed. A repo-linked rate resets at least once every three months. An MCLR loan waits for its own reset date, which can be up to a year away. During a rate hike, that delay does save something. On a ₹50 lakh balance, a 0.25% hike that reaches you nine months late saves roughly ₹9,375 in interest, and it saves it only once.

The second is the level of the rate, and this is the part that keeps going. Take a ₹50 lakh, 20-year loan at an illustrative 8.90% on MCLR against 8.50% repo-linked. The EMI gap is ₹1,274 a month, about ₹3.06 lakh over the full term if both rates stayed where they are.

So the comparison that matters is the total rate after your bank adds its spread. How quickly each one resets matters much less.

RBI’s rules let existing borrowers move to an external benchmark “at mutually acceptable terms”. In practice, your bank proposes the new spread. If that spread is high, the switch may save very little.

Two things are worth asking your bank in writing: the repo-linked rate it will offer you, and the exact switching fee.

Have you ever asked your bank for its repo-linked rate on an older MCLR loan? What did it quote?

#HomeLoan #PersonalFinance #RBI

[Nitish Sinha | Money Maths @initishkrsinha]

If your salary is ₹12.75 lakh or less, the new tax regime usually means zero income tax.

To match that in the old regime, you’d need about ₹7.25 lakh of deductions.

80C alone stops at ₹1.5 lakh.

[Nitish Sinha | Money Maths @initishkrsinha]

₹10,000 from an ATM on a credit card.

One bank’s terms: a fee of 2.5% or ₹500, whichever is higher. Plus 18% GST.

That’s ₹590 gone before the interest, which starts the same day.

[Nitish Sinha | Money Maths @initishkrsinha]

A Settled status doesn’t leave your CIBIL report after 7 years.

The rule says credit data must be kept for at least seven years.

A minimum. Not an expiry date.

[Nitish Sinha | Money Maths @initishkrsinha]

@Chandresh_Vora Agreed. And if paying in full isn’t possible one month, every rupee above the minimum still helps, because interest is charged only on what’s left unpaid.

[Nitish Sinha | Money Maths @initishkrsinha]

Paid most of your credit card bill but left ₹5,000 unpaid?

Your next grocery swipe usually starts costing interest from day one.

The interest-free period is gone until you clear it all.