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When mankind created technology, it didn't know that the latter would be the most irreplaceable 'organ' of the former. Technology has changed the way we work, the way we rest, the way we shop, the way we read, the way we play, indeed the way we live, and mostly for good.

It is now hard to imagine our lives without email, internet banking, online trading, WhatsApp, Facebook, Paytm or simply without a smart phone. If technology vanishes one day, it would leave us all in a haywire and would leave us handicapped to a large extent. Yes, technology has made our life comfortable but then at times, how we use technology can tarnish the good things if offers. With greater usage of technology, there also comes the responsibility to be more careful and avoid risks associated with technology.

You may have heard stories of someone's bank account getting hacked and he got robbed of his money or a Facebook account getting compromised with offensive content then posted form it, or someone getting an offer letter from a company asking for R 50,000 for the placement facilitation process. These are a few instances on how technology is also being misused by people to hurt or rob other people. We often hear such instances but then what do we do? It is for us to understand the risks and also follow some practices to ensure that we do not fall prey to such traps.

How to be Safe?

So, what should you do? How to ensure that you and your digital content / information is secure? You don't have to be a tech geek to protect yourself from cyber frauds, it's simple, 'you should be careful'. Think and act like a fish – don't bite into baits thrown at you, do not swim into nets spread out and avoid areas where the predators / bad fish swim. We have listed down few things which can help you in the process:

1. Always use passwords: Keep all your computing devices and machines, including mobiles, password protected and keep it a secret. This will keep all your personal information and content safe.

2. Use Strong passwords: While keeping a password for any device or online /digital account, always make sure that you create a strong password with a combination of alphabets, numbers and special characters. Be careful in not using obvious passwords like names, nick names, date of births, etc. as passwords. This is very important and can prove to be very effective although it might seem inconvenient to you.

3. Physically protect your devices: If you are using a smart mobile / tab then you should be extra careful of its physical security. You have your world on your phone and someone might pick up your device and start exploring your world, may even take note of your passwords, or may simply put your world in his pocket and run away. If you have your phone's identification info like the IMEI number then you may have better chances of tracking your phone.

4. Protect your connections / networks: Many of us may use wifi at home but how many of us protect it with strong passwords? It is also critical that you do not keep wifi hotspot / blue tooth or other connectivity features of your mobile devices open and not password protected. Always keep them off and password protected, especially when you are at public places.

5. Be extra careful using public networks: It is very important that one should be extra careful while using free or public networks available in spaces like hotels, stations, airports, etc. This is also true when you are using Internet at unknown places like for eg. cyber cafes. Unless critical, always avoid logging into personal accounts and doing financial transactions using such public /unverified private networks of any sort. They may be tempting but they might be very risky if you are not careful.

6. Do not choose save / auto-login options: Many websites and mobile applications, even the secure ones, might ask you to save your passwords. It might reduce your few seconds when you have to login the next time, but if your phone goes into the wrong hands, you are giving the key to all the secret gates decorated on a platter. A few extra seconds on manually entering passwords every time is totally worth it.

7. Never share OTP / Debit / Credit Cards details: Never ever share any OTP number you receive or any confidential information like personal details, card details, etc. with anyone either on phone or even if someone physically visits you and asks for the same. Any credible bank or card service provider would never ask you for such information and there is every possibility that such calls or visits are by fraudulent people.

8. Do not let your cards go out of sight: It is also important that you do not hand over your card and let it go out of your sight. There is every possibility that a person may copy all the card info and misuse the same later. Thus when you are eating out in hotels or shopping, always make sure that you pay with your card at the counter yourself, especially if it is an unknown place.

9. Clean your device before selling: If you are looking to sell your phone or your laptop, wipe out everything. Be careful in removing all browsing history, even softwares, applications, bookmarks, etc.

Double check for any data residing in anywhere. It is very likely that your new buyer will be curious to look for such data or traces of any information /content which he can use.

10. Do not fall prey to Scams: There are many instances where one may receive messages or emails asking for some personal information or messages promising jobs, money, etc. Do not fall prey to such messages which incite or threaten or request you to share any information or financial support for any reason whatsoever.

11. Other important things to do: √ Be careful in visiting proper websites of banks / social media accounts. Sometimes very similar looking pages may be sent in emails or listed in Google but they are not original sites. √ Be careful in downloading or installing any file from any unverified website. It may carry a harmful program. √ Be careful in connecting any third party device like usb / hard-disk or mobile etc. to your device as it may be infected. √ Always logout from your accounts after using the same from any browser at any place, especially outside home /office.

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The financial year 2017-18 is drawing to a close. It's time people start looking into the tax planning process, reviewing their existing tax investments, and evaluating various options to fill in the gap, if any. Although the lion's share is occupied by conventional tax saving options like, PPF, NSC, Bank FD, traditional insurance policies, etc., yet over the years, the uncustomary, Equity Linked Savings Schemes(ELSS) in Mutual Funds has started gaining traction.

What is ELSS?

ELSS is a Mutual Fund scheme, which predominantly invests in stocks, has a lock in period of 3 years and is eligible for tax deduction of upto Rs 1.5 lacs u/s 80C of the Income Tax Act. An investor can save tax of upto Rs 46,350* by investing in ELSS. (*For a resident individual falling under the 30% tax slab)

Why ELSS?

Coming to the point, the factors behind ELSS' consistently rising popularity, the reasons why you should invest in ELSS for saving tax.

So, there are various aspects which has led the entry of ELSS into the investors preferred tax zone, like:

> Drawbacks of Conventional products: The primary reason behind ELSS' developing fame is the traditional products are gradually loosing their sheen. This phenomenon can largely be attributed to the consistently falling interest rates, apart from the high lock-ins and other issues. With falling returns and that too taxable in most cases, the net interest received is small. And if you deduct the inflation rate, the return is negligible or may even run into negative. So, the investors are on the lookout for tax products with better returns.

> Superlative Returns: The conventional products give fixed returns, but may not be able to withstand the inflationary pressure. ELSS do not guarantee returns but has been able to generate superior returns in the past, due to its underlying asset class 'Equity', which has potential for high growth.

Following are the performance stats of ELSS schemes over the past 15 years

(*Average of 30 ELSS schemes; Returns as of 31^st Dec 2017)

The growing inclination towards ELSS do not require any explanation, the numbers alone do the talking.

> Tax free returns: Secondly, though all tax savers help the investor save tax, but not all of them offer tax free returns. It's just ELSS and PPF where not just the investment amount, but also the gains are exempt from tax. But in the case of PPF, the investor has to wait for 15 long years to savour the tax free returns.

> Tax Free Dividends: Not just returns, but the Dividends received from investing in an ELSS scheme are tax free in the hands of the investor. So, basically ELSS schemes enjoy the Exempt, Exempt, Exempt tax status. The Investment, the Returns on the Investment and the Dividends from the Investment, are all tax free.

> Lowest Lock in: Another major reason behind ELSS' popularity is it offers the lowest lock-in of 3 years amongst all tax saving investments. Here, you must note that the ELSS after all is Equity, and hence it is subject to short term volatility, and so the 3 years lock in should not be construed as the investment holding period. You must give it a long time, at least 10 years, to be able to exploit Equity's potential. An earlier withdrawal should be done in acute circumstances when you are in dire need of money. The low lock in of ELSS is intended to provide flexibility to the investor, to provide liquidity in emergencies, which is not available in other tax products like PPF or NSC, etc. It's only under certain specified extreme circumstances and/or on payment of a penalty, that the investor may be able to withdraw from the traditional products.

> Helps in Goal Achievement: Lastly, ELSS is not just about saving taxes, it helps investors in creating massive wealth and achieving their life goals. The ELSS investments of the investor can be linked to a life goal, and the superior returns generated, as seen in point 1 above, can place them multiple steps ahead on their goal achievement path.

Here is a table to explain the impact of superior returns on goal achievement.

Investment for Retirement Goal

(*Average of 16 ELSS schemes; Returns as of 31^st Dec 2017)

The investor who invested Rs 5 Lakhs in the average of ELSS schemes in 2003, would have got a whopping Rs 95 lakhs on his retirement, as compared to an investor who chose PPF and has to settle down for just Rs 15.86 lakhs. That's the Magic of Equity being gorgeously pulled off by ELSS schemes, and empowering the investors with massive wealth to achieve their goals.

So the bottomline is, the tax bell is ringing, and rather than randomly picking up any conventional product for saving taxes, it's ideal that you sit with your advisor, study the alternates, consider the benefits being offered by ELSS and make a wise choice.

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Mutual Funds SIP, as we all know is an investing tool which imparts discipline and convenience to the investing process. It is a systematized method of helping investors achieve their goals and smoothing out their financial life. It stands by you in good and bad times. SIP apart from being a disciplined approach to investment, also helps in generating superior returns for the investor by the virtue of Rupee Cost Averaging.

This article concentrates on how investors can leverage the fundamental principles of successful investing to get the maximum out of their SIPs. Deriving maximum benefit out of your SIP investment can be achieved through maximizing Returns and minimizing Risk. Following are some tips which can help you make the most out of your SIPs.

Follow your ideal Asset allocation: The ideal ratio between equity, debt, gold and real estate is not restricted to lump sum or physical investments only. SIP investments too need to follow the protocol. Your financial advisor has a major role to play here, he/she will ensure that your portfolio confirms to the optimum at all times. So if your ideal Portfolio is 50 Debt and 50 Equity, your investments through SIP need to follow this allocation and any discrepancy as a result of valuation gains or losses need to be adjusted to arrive at the optimum.

Follow the Rules: No doubt investing in Mutual Funds through SIP helps in controlling risks because of Rupee Cost Averaging, the buying cost is spread over a period of time, so the risk of buying at peak is eliminated. Yet you need to follow the basic rules of investing even though you are investing through the SIP mode.

• Link the SIP to your goals, it'll give you clarity, will help you in assessing how close or far you are from your goal and if you need to take any action with respect to the SIP amount.
• If the goal is too near, do not go for equity SIPs, if the horizon is longer, you can even go for riskier options like mid caps or small caps considering your risk appetite.
• Similarly, SIP investments should be in an assortment of varied underlying asset classes with the view to diversify risk, in confirmation with your ideal portfolio as discussed above.

Review periodically and Increase your SIP: You carve out your SIPs from your income to help you achieve your goals. Now your income is likely to increase each year and with this increase in income, the quantity and quality of your goals will also change. Investing through SIP does not mean you are sorted once and for all. It does make your life easy but doesn't terminate your job, you have to regularly look back and forth and amend your investment as the time demands. Hence, your SIP's should also increase with an increase in your income or with an elevation in your goals. Sit with your advisor and ask him to review your goals and help you decide the right SIP amount for you. The review should be done periodically, so that you don't lose track. Increasing your SIP is not a hectic task, but it is very important and should not be ignored.

Scatter your SIP dates: If you have multiple SIP's running, you should distribute the payments to different dates over a month. You should schedule them in a way that there is a reasonable gap between two SIP installments, this will ensure that you have sufficient liquidity throughout the month since all the money is not going out in one go. It will also help you in accelerating the benefit of Rupee Cost Averaging.

Exit from the underperformers, enter the performers: Ask your advisor to review your SIP for not just your goals and asset allocation but also for the investment's quality and future prospects. There is a need to check regularly how your SIP investments are faring over time, and how good does the future looks. If any of your SIPs isn't in the right scheme, you must exit that underperformer and enter a performer within the same category of funds to remain compliant to your ideal asset allocation.

So the above paragraphs are inscribed with a view to help you in exploiting your SIPs the maximum to your advantage. SIP's are like a financial blueprint of the investor's life, you choose the direction of your life and the above steps will ensure that the ride is smooth.

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People are very particular about the financial advisor they choose, we consider and evaluate alternatives, we take months to select the right financial advisor, we even change advisors if we are not satisfied. And we are right, we should care, because we are entrusting him with our hard earned money, our personal information, we are actually entrusting with him our lives, as he will be guiding us, he will be setting our investment path, so that we can actualize our life's goals.

So, we need an advisor who is honest, ethical, knowledgeable and who keeps our interests at the center. So, a good financial advisor has to fulfill a number of prerequisites before getting onboard.

But then, the success of our investment plan not only depends on how good the advisor is, we as investors also have a very crucial role to play here. If the advisor has responsibilities, if he can be held accountable, then we too share certain responsibilities.

Apparently some investors do not reveal the complete list of facts and figures about their personal or financial life. This is a major financial mistake, and can sabotage your entire financial plan. The advice of the advisor is based on the facts provided by the investor, if the facts are false or incomplete, then the advice may not be the perfect path towards towards your goals. To get the best from the advisor, the investor should be honest with him. The investor should take care of the following things during the making of his financial plan:

We have a number of people who advise us for our finances, CAs, lawyers, bankers, insurance agents, and financial advisors. On your CA's advise you invest money in a PPF, on your Uncle's advise you have invested in a property in the suburbs, you bought a medical insurance policy on the insurance advisor's advice and likewise. All these existing investments have an important role to play while devising your comprehensive financial plan, and they should be included as a part of your overall asset Portfolio. Consider an example, Arun is in his late 40's and he decides to have a financial plan. So he sits with his advisor and discusses his requirements, and even on the advisor's questioning, he does not reveal about a Rs 10 Lakh FD that he has and a house worth Rs 2 crores that he is expecting to inherit from his parents. This information makes his financial standing pretty sound, but because the advisor lacks this info, he lays down more of an aggressive financial plan for Arun. The Advisor presumes that Arun doesn't have a strong financial standing, and he needs to create wealth to meet his goals in the next one or two decades. But considering his age and the fact that he has decent wealth, an aggressive plan is not ideal for him, rather he should have had a conservative plan which would have protected his wealth along providing with some growth. Had the advisor known the complete facts and figures, he would have deleted the risk element from his plan. Misrepresentation of wealth resulted in creation of a bad financial plan for Arun. When you hide some investments from your advisor, your financial plan will not reflect the true picture.

Communicate your priorities: Let's say you want to buy a house in the next five years. So, you sit with your financial advisor and both of you lay down a plan of how will you be investing to achieve your goal, and you start following the investment plan. Now one year later, you tell your advisor that you need money from the home fund for a vacation to Europe with your wife as it is your 10^th wedding anniversary, and you can't postpone it because you promised this trip to your wife 5 years back. This vacation will disrupt your entire home plan, since the investment was created with a five year horizon and secondly withdrawing money now will result in a significant deficiency in the corpus at the time of buying the house. So, you should have communicated your vacation plans to your advisor when you were devising the plan. The advisor would have either provided for both goals in the plan or he would have asked you to postpone one of your goals. Therefore, the investor should communicate his priorities, his attitude towards risk, his nature, because all these characteristics exercise a significant influence on the investor's financial plan.

Personal Information: The investor may feel that certain details are embarrassing or are not relevant, and he skips narrating that information to the advisor, but such information may be vital and should have been accounted for in the financial plan. For eg. If an investor does not have a very pleasant relationship with his wife and he is expecting a split in the future and he hides this fact from his financial advisor, then this concealment will have a negative impact on his finances. The advisor will not account for this upcoming financial emergency and may direct his money towards his long term goals, leading the investor into a difficult situation in the future. Or if the investor or any of his family members is suffering from a serious health issue, the investor may omit telling about it to his advisor because according to him it isn't a material fact. But here too, providing for a health condition either in the form of insurance or an emergency fund is necessary to avoid pitfalls later.

There is a chance that you may want to entrust some part of your financial plan to some other service provider even though your financial advisor provides those services as well. Like you may want to buy an insurance policy from your insurance cousin, or you may want to plan for your taxes as per your CA only. So, you should be honest and should tell about it to your advisor point blank, because ultimately it is for your benefit. If there is a space for a particular insurance policy in your ideal Portfolio, the space should be utilized irrespective of the platform used. It will also give you a more holistic view of your finances and will depict deviations, if any.

So, the bottomline is your financial advisor is your best financial friend, who ought to know all about your finances, so that he can have your your back always.

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