Finance Tips

Money is an intrinsic part of our life. By money we mean any commodity generally accepted in payment for goods, services, & debts. The main use of money is makes the trading process simpler & more efficient, but actually money has various uses in the modern world & various functions, such as:

1. means of payment
2. medium of exchange
3. standart of value
4. unit of account
5. store of value
6. standart of deferred payment

Money, as the medium of exchange, is used in one-half of almost all exchange. Workers exchange labour services for money. Poeple buy & sell goods in exchange for money. We accept money not to consume it directly but bacause it can subsequently be used to buy things we do wish to consume. Money is the medium through which people exchange goods & services. To see that society benefits from a medium of exchange imagine a barter economy.

A barter economy has no medium of exchange. Goods are traded directly or swapped for other goods. In a barter economy, the seller & the buyer each must want something the other has to offer. Each person is simultaneously a seller & a buyer. In order to see a film, you must hand over in exchange a good or service that the cinema manager wants. There has to be a double coincidence of wants. You have to find a cinema where the manager wants what you have to offer in exchange.

Trading is very expensive in a barter economy. People must spend a lot of time & effort finding others with whom they can make mutually satisfactory swaps. Since time & effort are scarce resources, a barter economy is wastful.

Although the crutial feature of money is its acceptance as the means of payment & medium of exchange, other functions are also in great importance. Money can also serve as a standart of value. Society considers it convenient to use a monetary unit to determine relative costs of different goods & services. In this function money appears as the unit of account, is the unit in which prices & quoted & accounts are kept. Continue reading ‘MONEY AND BANKING’ »

Money is one of the man’s greatest inventions, an essential tool of civilization, because every society has a money economy based on coins and paper notes. In primitive society there was a barter system which is the direct exchange of goods and services for goods and services. As the extent of specialization increases, the barter system proves very inefficient. The great disadvantage of barter is the fact that it depends upon a “double coincidence of wants”. It means that the seller and the buyer each must want something the other has to offer. Each person is simultaneously a seller and a buyer. A hunter who wants to exchange his skins for corn must find, not merely a person who wants skins, but someone who wants skin and has surplus of corn for disposal. Trading is very expensive in a barter economy. Time and energy, which could be devoted to production, is spent to laborious system of exchange.

Quite early in his history man discovered a much more convenient arrangement. The use of some commodity as a medium of exchange makes exchange triangular and removes the major difficulty of the barter system. If the commodity is generally acceptable in exchange for goods and services, it is money. A producer now exchanges his goods for money and the money can be exchanged for whatever goods and services he requires.

There are 4 general functions of money:

- Money as a medium of exchange.

- money as a standard of value.

- Money as a store of value.

- Money as a standard of deferred payment. Continue reading ‘Money and Central Banking’ »

The Banks in India Face the problems of swelling non-performing assets (NPAs) and the issue is becoming more and more unmanageable. The NPAs have direct impact on banks profitability, liquidity and equity. The NPAs of Indian Banks are relatively huge by international standard. Therefore the biggest ever challenge that the banking industry now faces is management of NPAs. It is true that banks have to restrict their lending operations to secured advances only with adequate collateral securities.

In this connection banks must aware of the problems and recovery legislations of NPAs Non performing assets means an advance where payment of interest or repayment of installments of principal or both remains for a period of more than 180 days.

The magnitude of NPAs have a direct impact on banks profitability as legally they are not allowed to book income on such accounts and at the same time banks are forced to make provision on such assets as per the RBI guidelines. The Indian Banking sector is facing a serious situation in view of the mounting NPAs which are the tune of Rs.56,000 crores in March 2002.NPAs is an important parameter in the analysis of financial performance of banks. The reduction of NPAs is necessary to improve profitability of the banks and comply with capital adequacy norms. Continue reading ‘Money and Central Banking’ »