Home Loans
These loans are offered at attractive rates of interest with amounts starting from 2 lakhs with a tenure pt 20 years. The other benefits offered are free personal accident insurance, insurance options for one’s home at an attractive premium and special 100% funding for select properties. The bank also gives the option of selecting a loan that would suit one’s needs the most. So one could choose from an adjustable rate home loan, fixed rate home loan, part fixed floating rate home loan, smart fix home loan, money saver home loan as well as balance transfer of one’s existing home loan from other banks.   ICICI also disburses land loans, office premises loans, home improvement loans, and home loans for NRI’s. It is also possible to leverage one’s existing property and get a loan against property, property overdraft or lease rental discounting and all of these are available on an adjustable rate or a fixed rate.

Personal Loans
Hassle free personal loans with minimal documentation are also given by ICICI for an amount upto 15 lakhs.  All that one would need to show would be a salary slip, credit card statement and if one currently paying a loan then one also needs to show proof of the repayment track of that existing loan.  
 

Car Loans
ICICI has a network of nearly 1800 channel partners in over 1000 locations and agreements with all the leading automobile manufacturers so the best deals can be worked out.One needs to hypothecate one’s car in ICICI’ favor who in turn will give
1.An overdraft limit  i.e. cash upto 90% of the assessed value of one’s vehicle,
2.Interest will be charged on the amount utilized and the time period utilized for and in case there is no utilization of funds, then no interest will be charged.
3.There will be o fixed EMI’s. One only needs to pay a minimum of 5% of the total utilization of the overdraft facility.
4.One is provided with a roaming current account with the benefits of anywhere banking and nil minimum balance requirement.
5.The customer’s cheques are treated as local cheques at over 100 centres across India.
6.One can transfer funds, access one’s statements and pay one’s bills through internet banking.

Commercial Vehicle Loans
Through these loans one can get funding of new vehicles,refinance on used vehicles, balance transfer on high cost loans,top up on existing loans, working capital loans etc.The range of products includes trucks, buses, tippers, light commercial vehicles; pick ups, three wheelers etc.
 

Two Wheeler Loans
ICICI provides finance facility upto 90% of the on road cost of the vehicle, repayable in convenient repayment options with tenures ranging   from six to 36 months.All models of motorcycles,mopeds, scooterettes and scooters of Hero Honda, Bajaj, Suzuki, Yamaha, Kinetic Honda, and Royal Enfield. The existing customers have the advantage of can avail of the loan on phone facility to get an instant loan over the phone and get their preferred two wheeler in an instant so to speak.
 

Farm Equipment Loans
ICICI’s s farm equipment loans have flexible repayment options which are suited to the farmer’s seasonal liquidity with monthly, quarterly or half yearly repayment patterns to choose from and payment tenures which can range from one to nine years.
 

SBI Bank India has 52 Foreign Offices in 34 countries.In the  mid-’90s when SBI was facing stiff competition from whole lot of private sector banks, the assistance of McKinsey & Co was sought to help in its restructuring. Today SBI  has again approached Mckinsey for another round of restructuring as aggressive foreign banks who have the advantage of superior technology like ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank are eating into SBI’s market share of interest and fee-based income.

 
In 1999, its market share among the public, private and foreign banks excluding cooperative and regional rural banks in terms of deposits was 23.30 per cent, advances 23.67 per cent and total assets 24.91 per cent respectively but in March 2004, its share of deposits fell to 20.98 per cent, advances to 18.91 per cent and total assets to 21.38 per cent.
With its 9,000 branches along with its seven associate banks, the branch network adds up to an amazing 13,649 is roughly 20 per cent of all the bank branches in the country
 

SBI Home Loans
The distinctive features of SBI’s home loan schemes are that there is no cap on the maximum loan amount for the purchase or construction of a house or flat and there is an option to club the income of one’s partner and children in order to calculate the eligible loan amount which can be repaid upto 70 years of age. These home loan schemes also include free personal accident insurance cover and they charge no administration or application fee.Besides the usual purposes for the purchase or construction of a new house or flat, or a plot of land for the construction of a house, SBI also provides finances if one plans to extend, repair, renovate or alter an existing house or flat or one wishes to buy furniture or other furnishing for one’s home.  
To be eligible for a home loan with SBI, one should be a minimum 21 years of age and a processing fee is charges which is 0.5% of the loan amount including service tax.They have two types of interest rate amount which is floating interest rate of 10.75% which is linked to State Bank Advance Rate or SBAR and fixed rate interest of 9.5% upto first five years and 9.75% above five years and upto ten years.SBI provide finance under four types of home loan schemes which are SBI flexi home loans, SBI Maxgain home loans, SBI realty home loans and SBI freedom home loans.
 

Personal Loans
They have the advantage of low interest rates which are charged on a daily reducing balance, low processing charges of only 1% to 2% of loan amount, no hidden costs or administrative charges, no security which means minimal documentation, no prepayment penalties and a long repayment period upto 48 monthsThese loans have a repayment period upto five years and carry a low rate of interest.
 

Gram Niwas Scheme
This a scheme which is a part of SBI’s social obligation as a public sector bank and aims to cater to needs of those who reside in villages. They attempt to focus on the very poor for housing loans keeping in mind the peculiarity of ownership title in the rural areas, their social mores and the speicl type of construction used in these areas.
 

Easy Travel loans
They have the advantage of a low interest rate charged on a daily reducing balance, low processing charges of only 1% of the loan amount, no hidden costs, no security which automatically means minimal documentation, no prepayment penalties and a repayment period upto 48 months.
These schemes are aimed to meet travel expenses such as cost of tickets, hotel stays, visas, airport taxes etc. There are criteria for eligibility of course.
 

Car Loans
These can be used to buy a new car, jeep, MUV’s or SUV’s of any make or model or a used car / jeep/ MUV/SUV which should not be more than five years old and can be of any make or model.
One has the advantage of low interest rates, longer repayment period upto 84 months, low processing charges, no hidden costs, finance for one time road tax, registration fee and insurance premium and no advance EMI’s.
 

Education loans
These are granted to Indian nationals who wish to pursue higher education whether in India or abroad wherever one has got admission.The expenses considered for the loan are fees payable to the college, school or the hostel, examination or library or laboratory fees, purchase of books, equipment, instruments or uniforms, caution deposit, building funds and refundable deposits, the travel expenses incurred, computers and the cost of a two wheeler upto Rs 50,000/- and also other expenses such as study tours, project work etc. The loan disbursed is a maximum of 10 lakhs for studies in India and maximum of 20 lakhs for studies abroad. The interest rates charges are 11.00% per annum floating for loans upto 4 lakhs and 12.00% per annum floating for loans above 4 lakhs.

Besides the above, they also have an amazing variety of loans such as scholar loans, property loans, loans to pensioners, loans against shares or debentures, loan for earnest money deposit, festival loans, medi plus scheme, teachers plus scheme, tribal plus scheme, credit  khazana and rent plus scheme. 
 

There are a large number of banks and financial institutions, which provide for easy and effort free loans. However most times people fail to see the exorbitant interest rates that these loan sharks charge you. As a result if you were even a little complacent with your bill payments you would end up falling into a debt trap. There would be many people around like me who would have taken a loan from by seeing the glossy adds that pop up every where you lay your eyes on and than would have easily fallen into debt traps of these loan sharks.

So how to decide on a bank that helps you in reaching your ends and also at the same time does not leave you with a never-ending repayment bill. The best and the safest bet as regards as taking a loan in India is the state bank of India. The first thing is that it’s a government sponsored bank which guarantees that it does not get busted any day and the second thing is that it gives you loans on a fixed 11% per annum interest with no hidden charges as such.

 
Also what makes state bank of India special is that it gives loans for all sorts of reasons. If you are a student and if money is the only obstacle in your path to admission in a good college than state bank of India comes to your rescue. They have specialized loan schemes for students, which need to be repaid only after you get a job and start earning.  So whatever is the reason and whatever be your requirement state bank of India has a loan for it. If you still have doubts on its credibility simply ask the thousand of satisfied customers who have availed its services and benefited from it. Also getting a loan does not require a huge amount of paper work as it used to do in years before. You even need not provide for a security if your loan is less than four lakhs.

Today it is possible to actually move into one’s home as soon as one can cough up the down payment and of course keep paying the installments.  But one has to beware of the fact that the home loan is actually a mortgage and in case you default on your payments, you could loose your home.

 
The interest rates vary and the term of the home loans range from one to thirty years and obviously the longer the term, the higher will be the interest charged. There is also the rule that is one has decided on the longer term and them decides on pre payment, then there is a pre payment penalty which ranges from one to two percent.Applicants for the loans are screened by the banks or the concerned financial institutions to determine if they are credit worthy and one will have to produce some proof of income before the bank so that they can decide if one is financially sound and has the resources to regularly come up with the EMI or the monthly installments which are a certain percentage of one’s income. 

These rates of interest can be categorized as fixed or floating and range from 7.5% to 10% depending on the bank.Some of the leading home loan companies are IDBI, HDFC Bank, Housing and Urban Development Corporation Ltd., Housing Development Finance Corporation Ltd.,LIC Housing Finance Ltd., Kotak Mahindra, ICICI Bank, Can Fin Homes Ltd, Citibank and UTI Bank.GE Home loan is the new player in the market offering a loan for 200,000 though it only offers floating rate loans in the 7.5 to the 8.5% range. 
 

One of the reasons that home loans are readily being offered by such a wide variety of sources is also the fact so many more people in India can afford to take loans due to their soaring pay packets in this booming economy.But this upbeat mood in the home loan arena also obscures the fact that buying a house is still a very expensive proposition and interest rates are far too high though they have fallen in the recent past in the wake of pressure from the

Reserve Bank of India.
Though banks are still insignificant players in the market, home loans are a lucrative business for them since they get such a substantial return on these investments.According to a 2001 McKinsey study, land prices in India were the highest among all Asian nations relative to average income and the HDFC Chairman issued warned about the danger of inflationary conditions in housing created by a huge demand and the difficulty in land supply. Still, the home loan sector is on a upswing and there is an increase in the average loan size of home finance companies. HDFC is the second largest player in the home finance business and has seen average loan increase of almost 25 per cent and ICICI Bank, which is the largest player in the business there has been an increase of 10-15 per cent over last year.

Obviously, since these loans do not require any security hypothecation of assets there will be some penalty and that is a higher rate of interest as compared to any other secured loans. Banks today are vying with each other to market personal loans and in the fiscal ’05-06, personal loans constituted one-fifth of the total non-food gross bank credit followed by a sharp rise of 44% or Rs 1, 08,697 crore in the fiscal year ending March ’06.  These included loans for consumer durables, housing, advances against deposits, advances to individuals against shares and bonds, credit card outstanding and education loans. Even though personal loans do not form a very substantial segment of the retail loan portfolio of banks their share, particularly in the private and foreign banks has been rising steadily.

 
When going for a personal loan, what the customers look for besides the cost of credit which is the primary consideration of course is also the documentation requirements of the bank and lastly the very important factor is the speed with which the loan is approved.But since the interest rates are higher as compared to other loans, one needs to excersise some caution and check all the other possible alternatives. It would be advisable to go in for a tailor made loan such as a vehicle loan or a housing loan  or an education loan etc. The basic principle underlying a personal loan is the risk versus return theory, in other words, the more the risk associated with an individual, the higher the interest the would be charged on that particular loan and conversely, the lesser the risk, the lower the interest rate.
 

Personal loans can be categorized as secured and unsecured loans.
If the loan is unsecured this means that one can get the loan without pledging one’s property to the bank which suits those who do not own property. Though it is also true that even if one owns property, one can still get the loan without pledging one’s property if one is hesitant to do so. Though ironically property owners are considered less risky and get preferential treatment from banks as regards acceptance of their loan application and also better rates.
 

If a loan is secured, this means that one’s house is used as security against the loan and they also can be used for any legitimate purpose though some lender do impose restrictions on the use of these loans. The benefits of opting for a secured loan is that one could have the choice of fixed or discounted rates of interest.Since personal loans are target generally salaried individuals, the documentation is not complicated and all that one needs is a salary slip, bank statement and a proof of identity
 

Ironically, the one feature of a personal loan that makes it the most attractive to a consumer is also the feature that makes it the most costly which is that the lender does not require any security or guarantor or hypothecation of assets. This additional risk that the lending institution is exposed to is covered whereby there is a difference of 5% of more on the lending rate for an asset backed loan and an unsecured loan which leads to a high rate of interest of 21% compared to any other secured loan.To avail of a personal loan, one should be at least 21 years of age and not more than 58 years.

According to statistics nearly 75% of the total vehicles sold in the last decade were financed through auto loans. In fact NCAER did a huge car market survey for Maruti Udyog which covered around 4,50,000 households across 342 cities/towns and 1,976 villages across the country which revealed some interesting trends.For e.g. in North India, two in every five cars sold in north India, for instance are  still bought predominantly on cash while in  the conservative south India, three of every four new cars are bought on finance and Delhi alone sells 35% of all the cars sold in India.

In an aggressive effort to woo potential customers, banks and financial institutions are coming up with innovative schemes which are also customized to suit the individual requirements of different customers.  The share of bank and financial institution finance in new car purchase is on the rise, moving from a low under 40% pre-2000 to around 60% post 2004.
But intense competition was also responsible for car finance rates plummeting to 5% in late ’04 before stabilizing at 7% in ’05 and while HDFC informed the dealers of the higher rates through mails, ICICI had been more indirect in raising borrowing costs.
 

According to experts due to the high borrowing costs in the market, car financiers had no other recourse in order to protect their bottom lines.The various kinds of loans offered are the margin money scheme; advance equated monthly installment scheme, security deposit scheme, hire purchase scheme and processing fees.

 
In the margin money scheme a range with a minimum of 10% is to be repaid within a stipulated time and the balance is to be paid through post dated cheques. Since a margin has been paid at the outset, the EMI to be paid is generally lower whem compared to other schemes.Those looking for 100% fundng can go for the advance equated monthly installment scheme where EMI’s not lesser than 5 EMI’s are to be paid in advance and the remaining in post dated cheques. Because the EMI’s are higher, this scheme is not very popular. 
 

In the security deposit scheme, a one has to make a deposit as security for the complete term of the loan which earns an interest which could be simple or compounded but lower than the interest rate on the loan. At the end of the loan period, the security deposit ranging from 10 to 30% is returned to the customer.Mostly offered by NBFC’s, under the hire purchase scheme usually an amount as low as one rupee known as option money is charged  on payment of which the car is passed on to the hirer. The car is let on hire under this agreement and the hirer has the option to purchase the car in accordance with the terms of agreement.Under the lease financing purchase, one can lease a car and the lease amount  is financed by an NBFC. The ownership is with the lessor and the right to use the car is with the lessee for a stipulated period of time in return for periodic rental payments by the lessee to the lessor. This scheme is popular with corporates who are looking at some tax saving.Under the processing fees scheme, a fees ranging 2% to 4% of the loan amount is paid the bank as processing fees.The customer has to read the fine print when deciding to go in for these various schemes or one might end up paying an interest higher than what was decided.