How to Open PPF Account Online on SBI and ICICI Bank in India

Online PPF Account with SBI and ICICI bank India
Now you can open PPF or Public Provident Fund account online in India with ICICI bank and State Bank of India (SBI). This is a major step to increase popularity of PPF or Public Provident fund account among individual especially youngster who love convenient of net-banking from office or home. All major financial and saving product like fixed deposit or FD,  recurring deposit or RD and mutual funds are already available online, which means hard to choose PPF account over these personal saving instruments. Now since PPF account is also available online you can get all benefits of PPF account with the convenience of net-banking in India.

What is PPF or Public Provident Fund Account in India?

PPF or Public Provident Fund account is a government scheme to encourage individuals to invest money for future. PPF or Public provident fund account is one of the best options to invest money for risk-averse people i.e. people who don't want to invest money in equities or Mutual fund. 

PPF not only gives fixed and higher interest rates than fixed deposit though this changes and current PPF interest rate which are 8.8% is little lower than Fixed deposit rates, But PPF interest rates are not volatile like fixed deposit rates which keep changing every 15 days.



You can similarly check your EPF balance online  as well, this is convenient if your EPF account is lying on the post office and not with any major bank like ICICI and SBI which allows opening PPF account online. But also your PPF (Personal Provident Fund) account balance. 

I still prefer to open PPF bank account with SBI or ICICI to have visibility on my PPF account anytime from anywhere.

Why should you Open Online PPF Account?

1) The convenience of net banking, you can deposit money or installments into your PPF account from your convenience by using net banking facility of SBI and ICICI bank. This is the single most feature which promoted many of my friends to open their PPF account with SBI and ICICI bank. Though you can also open PPF or public provident fund account in Post office, it doesn't provide a net banking facility for depositing money.


2) Attractive rate of interest, PPF account provides 7 to 8 % per year which is credited to your account on the 31st march of every year.

3) One of the major tax benefits of investing in PPF account is that it's reduce your taxable income, which may save you from paying the high rate of income tax. You can invest up to 1 lakh into PPF or personal provident fund Account, which is exempted from income tax in India. This makes effective interest rate on PPF account even higher.

4) As a smart investor, you know how important is to allocate your money to a different asset (Asset allocation) and debt is one of the important parts of asset allocation. Given high volatility in Stock market and the poor run of almost 5 years, debt as an investment option is getting popular. In my opinion along with fixed deposits, PPF is the best investment option for debt. PPF is backed by the government, it's less risky and provides long-term investment option.

5) Another tax benefit of PPF account is that interest earned on PPF account is completely tax-free i.e. you don't need to pay any income tax on interest earned on your PPF account while interest earned on fixed deposit is taxable and subject to TDS.

Many salaried people who want to open PPF  account just delay it because of hassle involved in it. I hope with the option of opening PPF account online with SBI and ICICI bank, they can also open their PPF account quickly and start investing on PPF to avail tax benefit and keep their money safe with a assured interest rate of 8.8% per year with PPF (personal provident fund) account.

Other NRI Income tax articles you may like

• 3 Income tax benefits of opening NRI accounts in India 
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• Is it mandatory to file income tax returns for NRIs?
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• How to determine tax residential status of NRIs?
• 10 points NRIs should know about Income tax?
• Is Aadhaar card Mandatory for filing an Income tax return for NRIs?

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