Most of the middle-class families in the country have fixed deposits or FDs as their first choice of investment. The biggest reason for this is that investing in FD is risk-free. But banks have reduced interest rates on term deposits due to the Reserve Bank of India cutting the repo rate by 135 basis points so far this year. Major banks in the country like SBI, HDFC Bank, PNB and ICICI are offering 6.5% (excluding Senior Citizen) interest rate on FD for a period ranging from one year to 10 years.

The fall in interest rates on FDs is affecting the retired person the most, as they depend on income from this. Today we are going to tell you some such investment options, from which you can get higher returns than FD.

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Small Finance Bank / New Private Bank
New private banks like DCB Bank and IDFC First Bank offer interest rates up to 7.80 percent for ordinary citizens and 8.4 percent for senior citizens. At the same time, small finance banks like Utkarsh Bank and Jan Small Finance are also offering interest rates up to 8.6 percent on term deposits. You can get higher returns than FD by choosing one of these options. For information, let us know that the money in these banks is more secure than the co-operative banks. That is because here your money is covered through the Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Scheme.

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Post office scheme
Here your money is more secure than bank FD and the returns are also higher here than there. In the post office, you get 9 investment options for different periods. Here options like PPF and Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana are for the long term. In addition, the post office time deposit, senior citizen saving scheme and monthly income scheme are a short and medium-term. The interest rate on these schemes for the same period is 1.5 percent higher than bank deposits. At the same time, some schemes like PPF and SSY also get tax rebates along with high returns.

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Tax-free bonds
This bond is suitable for those in the highest tax bracket. That is because the interest income in it is tax-free. These tax-free bonds are issued by government institutions, so there is little scope for money to sink into it. These bonds are issued for long periods ranging from 10 to 20 years. Right now tax-free bonds offer tax-free returns of between 5.1 and 5.4 percent.