The Employees Provident Fund (EPF) is expected to retain the interest rate for its six crore account holders at 8.5% in 2010-11, with a formal announcement likely to be made in August. "I hope that the recommendation of 8.5% by the finance and investment committee of the EPFO will be retained," Central Provident Fund Commissioner S Chatterjee said. "The EPF rate will hopefully be finalised in the next EPF Board meeting, which is expected in August," he said. Asked if there was any shortfall in return from the current payout of 8.5%, Chatterjee said there was no deficit.
The stock markets have been volatile over the last few days. They are in a sideways movement and trying to find the bottom after a fall of 20 percent a week ago. The market sentiments are not very positive at the moment and the recent developments are expected to dampen them further. Globally, governments and central banks are trying to cut rates and announce packages to improve business sentiments. These are some of the major developments in the markets last few month: A) Global On the global front, another large US bank went into a financial crisis. The US government took quick measures to avoid the spread negative sentiments in the markets. The US government announced a bail-out package and agreed to shoulder the losses on the bank's risky assets. China announced a large cut in interest rates and reserve ratio to boost the investor sentiments in the markets. Recently, the World Bank announced China's growth rate next year will come down to 7.5 percent. The European ...
