Having Faith : Life is not the same anymore !

It's been really long since i got time to sit with myself. Today, I felt like writting how my life has changed in past few years. I am not the same person I used to be may be 3-4 years back. I used to have ambition and goals for myself, which I no longer have. I used to love food, movies , travel, talking to friends and just getting to explore things. Now, nothing makes me happy, I gave up on non-veg, food doesn't excite me anymore. I don't travel at all. I have lost touch with almost all my friends. My priorities have changed but I wonder if there is anything that can make me happy anymore. I have grown and become more mature, sometimes life teaches you so much in 1-2 years that couldn't be taught in 30-35 years. Strange it might sound but it's true. Tough times make you a better person. Nothing can teach you about life, about people around you or infact about yourself, more than difficult times. Even now, when I am deeply scarred and hurt, I thank god for giving me strength to be positive and to still think good for others. It's an instrument i use that affirms that I am on the right path. My inclination towards sprituality has helped me in these times. There was a time I used to wonder - why would anyone want salvation ? Life is beautiful and why would someone want to get rid of this cycle of birth and death? However, now i realised that life is never about being happy or trying to be happy. Life is created in order for us to learn and grow, and this involves going through challenges and God put us through difficult scenarios in order to give us opportunities to be true to ourself and to do the right thing, in order to refine and grow ourselves(our soul). Well, it's true that you will feel lonely and weak during the tough times, but the hope of better tomorrow keeps you going. Doing the right Karmas (which keeps your conscience clean) and having faith is all that we can control.

Life is so funny !

For what I have learnt till now out of my experience is there is no objective way of saying what will give you happiness and what will not. However materialistic the world might become, but one thing is rest assured that you can't be sure if materialistic things will always make you happy. I do get happy when i end up getting a good bonus, but thats not always the case sometimes i just don't care.

Just to take a recent incident, generally people look forward to a US visa. I got it stamped few days back and strangly there wasn't a slight presence of happiness. I wanted to feel happy but wasn't sure for what. And then I get this stupid call from my manager, a very trivial appreciation and I was on cloud 9. Really, life is so strange and funny, i sometimes feel how difficult it is to really say for sure what will give you happiness and what might bring in despair.

Live not to be happy but to try out all possible ways to be happy !! Appreciate Change and unpredictability !!

Change is normal and desirable !!

It's a cliche to say change is inevitable. I have gone through drastic changes throughout my life. Sometimes, I feel i intentionally make sure that i move on once i settle at a place fr too long. Post MBA I have joined a brilliant company and the work culture here is the ultimate proof of that. It's a completely different role from what I had done before MBA. It's agressive, demanding and above all absolutely result oriented. Every day is like a school with day ending with plethora of learnings to take back home with me. I just wish I continue to appreciate what I have and value it by delivering what the role asks for.

Payment Banks on way to disrupt Banking Industry !

RBI’s decision to allow payments banks to function would definitely improve the financial inclusion with increased channels and platforms for people across income groups. However, It will pose certain challenges for the incumbent Universal banks and this might try to disrupt the banking Industry.

Source: Business-Standard.com

There are certain factors that stand to prove that the path for the Universal banks is not easy post payment banks:

1)      Cost will be quite low for the payment banks compared to the Universal banks. Payments banks will make use of technology to reach to wide range of customers, while just going for minimal number of branches. Also, payments bank will not have the large number of employees as the Universal banks would.

2)      Payments bank doesn’t have to :

a.       Block money in SLR

b.      Lend to priority sector

Payments bank can’t:

a.       Lend to customers

b.      Do fixed deposit.

c.       Deposit more than 1 lakh

Payments banks have to:

a.       Invest all deposit in government bonds ( less than one year maturity)

As a result, Payments bank safe from bad loans. Also, payments banks can offer higher rates on saving deposit (Deposit rates of as high as 6-7%, compared with the average 4% savings deposit rates). They can concentrate more on service.

Payments banks would try to target large share of the low-cost deposits in urban areas. This is a huge market at the bottom of pyramid. This will allow these payments banks to make their operations in rural areas feasible.

With India post given the payment bank license, the Casa share in rural market is certainly going to be impacted. Also, Big corporate like Airtel, Reliance and Aditya Birla, trust factor is easy to establish even in Urban markets.