Webinar on Financial Planning

World Trade Center Kochi in association with Geojit Financial Services Ltd. organized a webinar on Personal Financial Management which discussed the importance and steps of financial planning, setting & valuing goals, setting & evaluating strategies, as well as retirement planning. Mr. Vijayananda Prabhu CFPCM, Chief Manager and Mr. Tom N Jacob AFP Senior Manager, Geojit Financial Services Ltd. were the Speakers.

Mr. Tom N. Jacob listed the things to focus before investing - goals, risk profile, returns, liquidity, how much to invest in each asset category. He added that SEBI has set up qualifications and experience criteria for financial advisors. Earlier, people only enquired about where to invest, but now the question is multidimensional as to how much to invest and when. He gave a broad overview of the financial planning process- analyse current financial position, evaluate and set goals, design and evaluate strategies, periodic review, periodic advice and guidance.

Mr. Vijayananda Prabhu in his speech explained the importance of setting up a contingency fund. He listed the various kinds of financial and physical assets and the current trend in their performance. He gave various wealth performance indexes like contingency ratio, debt to asset ratio, debt coverage ratio, savings ratio. He also explained the importance of insurance and explained the life insurance analysis and health insurance analysis to secure one’s future. He added that there are various asset classes like cash, equity, fixed income, commodities and real estate, but people are confused as to where to invest and by what proportion. He stated that the following factors should be carefully analyzed before investing - risk profile, tenure of goal, nature of goal, nature of investment, maturity profile, risk category. He also gave a few examples of common financial mistakes - investing in many products without purpose, falling for higher returns, taking unaffordable long-term commitments, not choosing investments according to nature of goal.

Dr. Bose K. Nair, VP, World Trade Center and Mr. Vivek George, Manager, World Trade Center Kochi also spoke during the session.