The Life Insurance Corporation of India is the largest insurance provider in the country. Established in the year 1956 and currently having its headquarters in Mumbai, the Government of India is the owner of this public insurance company. The Life Insurance Corporation of India was formed by merging several private insurance corporations into one unified company.

In terms of performance, LIC is the best life insurance company in India. The company sells the greatest number of plans on a yearly basis thus placing them at the table. Life insurance, medical insurance, vehicle insurance, different types of investment plans, retirement plans etc. are some of the common plans that are bought. As of today, LIC India has the largest hold on market shares in insurance. You can also refer the top general insurance companies in India.

LIC at a Glimpse

The Life Insurance Corporation of India has established itself throughout the country. The company has the largest amount of money that is invested in it through customers and also sell the most number of plans in the course of a year.

• • LIC India is located in Mumbai which is the hub for trade and commerce in India.
  • The company has the largest recognition all over India with the greatest number of workers and agents under it’s wings.
  • LIC holds the greatest amount of share in the market.
  • Different policies are present that are based off of a wise spectrum of customer types. The plans and policies are so diverse in order to meet the needs and requirements of every single customer.
  • LIC India has one of the fastest claim settlement times among all other insurance companies that are present in India.
  • Policy and plan holders are exempted from tax in nearly all policies that are offered by the company.

LIC Term Plans

LIC India has term insurance plans for customers. These plans are like regular insurance plans that have a variety of features and inclusions. The premiums of the plans are low as compared to a normal insurance plans. The plan gives special benefits to the nominee of the insurance holder in the case of an unforeseen death. Once the plan matures, no maturity value is given to the insurance holder.

Due to the price of buying the plan and the premium that needs to be payed are all very low while the coverage of the plan is very high, many individuals prefer to buy this plan. The plan allows an individual to not only get a life insurance benefit for himself/herself but also guarantees the financial stability of the insurers family when the insured is no longer present. The plans are cheap which is the most attractive feature of the plan itself.

Why Buy a LIC Term Plan?

LIC term plans have their premiums and amounts decided depending on the age of the individual who is buying the plan. The younger the individual, the cheaper will be the terms insurance plan for him/her. Some reasons why a term insurance plan should be bought include:

• • A term insurance plan saves a lot of money. The term insurance plans are cheap to buy and the premium for the plans also do not hurt the pocket of the insured. Taking into account that there is no maturity value of the plan, the plan includes all the features of a life insurance plan. Term plans guarantee the safety of the individual and the family of the insured for the rest of their days while also being cheap. This is the prime reason why the plans are so popular among many.
  • The term insurance plan premium depends on the age of the individual. Young people are healthier compared to those who have aged. At a young age getting a life insurance cover that is not very expensive and which includes all the features of a health insurance plan is the most appealing feature of the plan. Term insurance plans allow the insured to be worry-free for health insurance throughout their lives.

LIC e-Term Online Plan

In the age of the internet and technology, nearly all insurance plans can be bought on the internet. The premiums for the plan and other payments for maintaining the plan can also be done on an online platform. Similarly, a term insurance plan can also be bought off of the internet from the official LIC website in minutes. An online term insurance plan by LIC is known as an e-Term plan.

Features and Benefits of LIC e-Term Online Plan

The plan has a number of features and benefits such as:

1. 1. The minimum age for any individual to buy this plan is 18 years while the maximum age for the same is 60 years.
   2. The plan can mature in a matter of 10 years or 35 years. The maturity of the plan depends on the age of the individual who is buying the plan.
   3. Depending on the sum that is assured to the insured, the minimum and the maximum annual premium for the plan can be easily calculated.
   4. The plan has a grace period of 30 days after which the plan will lapse.
   5. A lapsed policy can be renewed within 2 years.
   6. This plan can either be taken for a single individual or for a family.
   7. The maximum age for the plan to cover an individual is 75 years.
   8. Trail period for this policy is also available for customers. If customers return the policy then the premium for the policy is returned back to the individual. This trial period is up to 30 days.
   9. The minimum amount of money that is assured from an e-term policy is Rs. 25 lakhs for those who smoke while it is Rs. 50 lakh for non-smoker customers.
   10. At the time of an untimely death of the insured, the entire sum assured is paid to the nominee of the insured.

Since the term insurance plan by LIC is an online plan, the application for the policy and all other necessary details are filled on an online platform. There is no need for the customer to come to a LIC office or go through an agent for the same. On an online basis, customers can also track the progress and know their LIC policy status along with the necessary details for the same.

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The Union Cabinet have agreed to change the Definition of MSME Business in India. This step was taken to coordinate the definition of MSME with the GST Establishment, as it will be straightforward for authorities to verify the claims of business using the sales data of GST. This Step is also expected to increase the ease of doing Business in India and will help in avoiding unnecessary inspection of MSME Business, as this move will help in introducing a non-discretionary, transparent and objective classification system. Also, this step is necessary to ensure that MSME Sector is aligned properly with the needs of current times and Changing Business Ecosystem.

What was The Earlier Definition of Indian MSME Business?

Earlier, the MSME Business was defined based on the investment in Plant and Machinery. Under this definition the business that have investment of INR 25 lakh in plant and machinery came under the category of Micro Enterprises, enterprises with investment in plant and machinery between INR 25 lakh and 5 cores came in the category of Small Enterprises and enterprise that have investment in plant and machinery up to INR 10 Crore came under the category of Medium Enterprise.

What Is the New Definition of MSME Business In India?

In the new definition of MSME business, the business that have revenue does not exceed INR 5 Cr will be known as known as Micro Enterprise, the enterprises with the sales between INR 5 crore and INR 75 crore will come under the category of Small Enterprise and the enterprises with revenue between INR 75 crore and INR 250 crore will come under the category of Medium Enterprises.

What will be the benefit of New Definition of MSME Business In India?

• The first benefit that adapting a new definition for MSME Business is that it will make the classification system of MSME very transparent, liberal and transformative as taking turnover as a criteria for ascertaining New GST Registration (myonlineca[dot]in/gst-registration[dot]html). In GST Network will make reliable figure available that will eliminate the need of Inspection.
• The second benefit will be that it will increase consequent growth of MSME and will make way for expanded Growth in Direct and Indirect Employment in MSME Business in India.
• The third benefit that an MSME Business will get is that new definition will remove the clauses that used to exclude MSME Enterprises from getting benefits of the Promotional schemes for Development of MSME Sector in India.

Conclusion for Revised Proposed Definition of MSME Business in India

I would like to point out to you that the number of MSME registered on Udyog Aadhar (myudyogaadhar[dot]org) till July 12, 2018 is 48.40 lakh, also the export of MSME manufactured products from India has increased to $137.1 billion in 2016-17 from $130.8 billion in 2015-16. So Changing the Definition of MSME Business in India is Expected to be one of the positive move taken towards enhancing growth of the MSME sector in the Country. With taking Turnover as criteria to define MSME Business will help in decreasing some degree of GST Tax Burden on MSME Business and will help it to get some perks from the Government of India.

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Digital payments, e-wallet and financial services platform, MobiKwik, has integrated Unified Payments Interface (UPI) on its platform via its own VPA (Virtual Payment Address) handle @ikwik.

MobiKwik has its own customized VPA handle “@ikwik” for making payments unlike existing UPI based services offered by non-banking entities.The company has claimed that safety has been given utmost priority in MobiKwik UPI app and users can be rest assured about their data security, even in case of loss of SIM or device.

MobiKwik is the first in the industry to offer UPI access to a huge base of 3 million merchants on its app. It is also amongst the first few in the industry to offer Bharat QR, UPI QR and Intent Functionality for merchant payments.

Additionally, all MobiKwik users will be able to do P2P bank transfers using UPI. The company claims that its UPI app is 100% in compliance with the NPCI guidelines and is the most secured UPI app till date as per NPCI.

MobiKwik’s users can use their mobile number as their own VPA which will be ‘@ikwik’. They will also be able to link multiple bank accounts with just one VPA and can change primary account as per their requirements. Users can simply scan and generate UPI QR functionality to send and receive money using VPA and phone number from the contact list. If the receiver is also registered in Mobikwik UPI ecosystem, sender can send money by selecting his contacts from the phone book without remembering VPA domain. It will also be possible for users to request money using UPI on the MobiKwik app.

On this development, Bipin Preet Singh, Founder and CEO, MobiKwik, said, “Our strength lies in user experience, the wide network of merchants and the numerous daily life use-cases we power. We intend to provide all payments options, including wallets, virtual cards and UPI, to ensure convenience across our user base. Mobikwik will be first player of scale to include all inter-operable features in its UPI launch app. We believe that with UPI on our platform, we will be able to empower our users with the power of transferring between bank accounts in an extremely safe and simple manner. With the roll out of UPI, we expect a reduction in the usage of debit cards and internet banking on the MobiKwik app, as UPI will offer a better user experience. Keeping in mind our reach on the merchant side, we hope to substantially increase momentum of merchant transactions on UPI. We will be adding more payment options for the benefit of our users in the times to come.”

Promoted by the Government of India, UPI powers multiple bank accounts into a single mobile application of any participating bank, merging several banking features, aimed at offering seamless routing of fund and merchant payments from this single platform.

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StartupIndia scheme is a golden scheme launched by Government of India under MINISTRY OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY to promote and grow the startups in India.

Government of India has introduced very efficient policy to support startups & new business ventures with creative & innovative ideas.

StartupIndia is a campaign to promote banks for financing new ventures to encourage entrepreneurship and star ups with jobs creation. Announced by hon’ble Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his lecture on 15th August, 2015 from the Red Fort, to encourage entrepreneurs for creating jobs instead of doing jobs and increase employment in India.

The purpose of this Scheme is to restrict role of States in policy domain and to eliminate of “License Raj” and break hurdles like in land permissions, foreign investment, environmental clearances, political interferences etc. It was regulated by DIPP (Department of industrial policy and promotion).

1. Incorporate your Startup/Business

You must first incorporate your business as a Private Limited Company or a Partnership firm or a Limited Liability Partnership. You can refer our earlier post to get the help on Incorporating a company.

2. Register with Startup India

Go to StartupIndia website and follow the simple steps to get registered there as a startup. The entire process is simple and online. All you need to do is log on to the Startup India website and fill up the form with details of your business and upload certain documents. Give entity details, startup office address, authorized representative details, Directors and Partners details etc.

3. Documents in PDF format to be uploaded

A) A letter of recommendation/support

A letter of recommendation, from any of the below, needs to be submitted along with the registration form.(i) A recommendation (regarding innovative nature of business) from an Incubator established in a post-graduate college in India, in a format specified by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP)

(ii) A letter of support by an incubator, which is funded (in relation to the project) by Government of India as part of any specified scheme to promote innovation

(iii) A letter of recommendation (regarding innovative nature of business), from an Incubator, recognized by the Government of India in DIPP specified format

(iv) A letter of funding of not less than 20% in equity, by any Incubation Fund/Angel Fund/Private Equity Fund/Accelerator/Angel Network, duly registered with SEBI that endorses innovative nature of the business

(v) A letter of funding by Government of India or any State Government as part of any specified scheme to promote innovation

(vi) A patent filed and published in the Journal by the Indian Patent Office in areas affiliated with the nature of the business being promoted.

B) Incorporation/Registration Certificate

You need to upload the certificate of incorporation of your company/LLP (Registration Certificate in case of partnership)

C) Description of your business in brief

A brief description of the innovative nature of your products/services.

1. 1. If you want to avail Tax benefits under this scheme: Startups are exempted from income tax for 3 years. But to avail these benefits entity must be certified by the Inter-Ministerial Board (IMB). Start-ups recognized by DIPP, Govt. of India can now directly avail IPR related benefits without requiring any additional certification from IMB. There are certain other conditions as well like the entity must be incorporated on or after the 1st day of April, 2016 but before the 1st day of April, 2019, and must be working towards innovation, development or improvement of products or processes or services, or should be a scalable business model with a high potential of employment generation or wealth creation.
   2. Finally self-certify for below steps-
      A) Entity must be a Private Limited Company, Partnership firm or a Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) B) Turnover must be less than 25 crores per year. C) Innovation is a must– the business must be working towards innovating something new or significantly improving the existing used technology. D) Your business must not be as a result of splitting up or reconstruction of an existing business.

Apart from the tax benefits startups get after registering in this program, startups also get funding support. Government has set up a fund with an initial corpus of INR 2,500 crore and a total corpus of INR 10,000 crore over a period 4 years (i.e. INR 2,500 crore per year) for the registered startups under StartupsIndia program.

Recently, SEBI has also taken steps to ease Angel Funding for Startups in India. You can follow the above steps to register your startup.

Other than this, there are certain Startup laws every Entrepreneur should follow.

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As per the reports by Google (Alphabet Inc.) and Boston Consulting Group, India is headed for an exponential increase in digital payments methods and the digital payments industry in India becoming Asia’s third-largest economy. It is estimated that it will grow by 10 times to touch $500 billion by 2020 and contribute 15% of gross domestic product (GDP), the report predicted.

Introduction of smartphones, the entry of several non-banking institutions offering payment services, consumer readiness to adopt digital payments, progressive changes in the regulatory framework will power the trend, it said.

Also, the Digital India program is a flagship program of the Government of India with a vision to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy. “Faceless, Paperless, Cashless” is one of professed role of Digital India.

As part of promoting cashless transactions and converting India into less-cash society, various modes of digital payments are available as below-

1. Banking Cards (Debit / Credit / Cash / Travel / Others)

Banking cards offer consumers more security, convenience, and control than any other payment method. The wide variety of cards available – including credit, debit and prepaid – offers enormous flexibility, as well. These cards provide 2 factor authentication for secure payments e.g secure PIN and OTP. RuPay, Visa, MasterCard are some of the example of card payment systems. Payment cards give people the power to purchase items in stores, on the Internet, through mail-order catalogues and over the telephone. They save both customers and merchants’ time and money, and thus enable them for ease of transaction.

2. Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD)

The innovative payment service *99# works on Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) channel. This service allows mobile banking transactions using basic feature mobile phone, there is no need to have mobile internet data facility for using USSD based mobile banking. It is envisioned to provide financial deepening and inclusion of under banked society in the mainstream banking services.

*99# service has been launched to take the banking services to every common man across the country. Banking customers can avail this service by dialing *99#, a “Common number across all Telecom Service Providers (TSPs)” on their mobile phone and transact through an interactive menu displayed on the mobile screen. Key services offered under *99# service include, inter-bank account to account fund transfer, balance inquiry, mini statement besides host of other services. *99# service is currently offered by 51 leading banks & all GSM service providers and can be accessed in 12 different languages including Hindi & English as on 30.11.2016 (Source: NPCI). *99# service is a unique inter-operable direct to consumer service that brings together the diverse ecosystem partners such as Banks & TSPs (Telecom Service Providers).

3. Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AePS)

AEPS is a bank led model which allows online interoperable financial transaction at PoS (Point of Sale / Micro ATM) through the Business Correspondent (BC)/Bank Mitra of any bank using the Aadhaar authentication.

4. Unified Payments Interface (UPI)

Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is a system that powers multiple bank accounts into a single mobile application (of any participating bank), merging several banking features, seamless fund routing & merchant payments into one hood. It also caters to the “Peer to Peer” collect request which can be scheduled and paid as per requirement and convenience. Each Bank provides its own UPI App for Android, Windows and iOS mobile platform(s) such as Axis Pay, SBI Pay, PhonePe App, Google Tez App, BHIM UPI App, Bonus App – PNB UPI.

5. Mobile Wallets Or E-Wallets

A mobile wallet or E-Wallet is a way to carry cash in digital format. You can link your credit card or debit card information in mobile device to mobile wallet application or you can transfer money online to mobile wallet. Instead of using your physical plastic card to make purchases, you can pay with your smartphone, tablet, or smart watch. An individual’s account is required to be linked to the digital wallet to load money in it. Most banks have their e-wallets and some private companies and various startups have also launched E-Wallets in India. e.g. PayTM, Freecharge, Mobikwik, Oxigen, mRuppee, Airtel Money, Jio Money, SBI Buddy, itz Cash, Citrus Pay, Vodafone M-Pesa, Axis Bank Lime, ICICI Pockets, SpeedPay etc . are digital payment methods.

6. Banks Pre-Paid Cards

Prepaid debit cards, sometimes referred to as bank prepaid cards, are credit instruments that banks issue that give people an easy and adaptable way to manage their finances. Prepaid cards are independent of bank accounts, in contrast to conventional debit or credit cards that are connected to checking or credit accounts. Rather, they preload money onto the card, which they then use for a variety of payments up to the available balance.

7. Point Of Sale

A point of sale (PoS) is the place where sales are made. On a macro level, a PoS may be a mall, a market or a city. On a micro level, retailers consider a PoS to be the area where a customer completes a transaction, such as a checkout counter. It is also known as a point of purchase.

8. Internet Banking

Internet banking, also known as online banking, e-banking or virtual banking, is an electronic payment system/digital payment methods that enables customers of a bank or other financial institution to conduct a range of financial transactions through the financial institution’s website.

9. Mobile Banking

Mobile banking is a service provided by a bank or other financial institution that allows its customers to conduct different types of financial transactions remotely using a mobile device such as a mobile phone or tablet. It uses software, usually called an app, provided by the banks or financial institution for the purpose. Each Bank provides its own mobile banking App for Android, Windows and iOS mobile platform(s) which is one of the most popular digital payment methods now a days. 

10. Micro ATMs

Micro ATM meant to be a device that is used by a million Business Correspondents (BC) to deliver basic banking services. The platform will enable Business Correspondents (who could be a local kirana shop owner and will act as ‘micro ATM’) to conduct instant transactions.

The micro platform will enable function through low cost devices (micro ATMs) that will be connected to banks across the country. This would enable a person to instantly deposit or withdraw funds regardless of the bank associated with a particular BC. This device will be based on a mobile phone connection and would be made available at every BC. Customers would just have to get their identity authenticated and withdraw or put money into their bank accounts. This money will come from the cash drawer of the BC. Essentially, BCs will act as bank for the customers and all they need to do is verify the authenticity of customer using customers’ UID. The basic transaction types, to be supported by micro ATM, are Deposit, Withdrawal, Fund transfer and Balance inquiry.

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