‘Bond’ with the best to stay ahead of inflation

Senior citizens, common investors should opt for high-quality corporate bonds to mitigate the risk of negative real returns

These are difficult days for the Indian middle and lower middle class, especially senior citizens who do not have a regular pension. Most who have not worked for either the Central or State governments or public sector units are unlikely to be receiving pension benefits indexed to their last-drawn salaries and inflation. Instead, these senior citizens depend on income derived as interest from fixed deposits in scheduled banks. While HDFC Bank offers 4.9% for regular depositors and 5.4% for senior citizens on fixed deposits of maturities of 1 year to 2 years, respectively, SBI offers 5% and 5.50%, for the same tenors, for the respective categories.