Here is some good news to small Indian investors who save money in Public Provident Fund(PPF) accounts operated in Post Offices and few nationalized banks – returns of your PPF savings are going to increase.
Indian government has decided to increase the rate of interest paid to customers from 8% to 8.6%. To put it in numbers, if you have a 2,00,000 of savings in PPF account they are going give returns of 17,200/- per annum compared to 16,000/- returns at 8%. Also the the maximum cap on the investments in to PPF account per annum is increased to 1,00,000 from 70,000/-.
PPF is one of the safest debt investments that gives very decent returns, but if you are a salaried employee with PF account then consider investing in Voluntary PF(VPF) instead of PPF as VPF returns are higher than PPF. CC image credit: Dave Dugdale.