I have been investing a sum of Rs 5,000 each in three different funds for the last three years. However, I could not make the payment for the last four months due to some personal challenges. Can I continue again? Or, should I withdraw the amount and reinvest in any other fund?

— Padmaja Reddy, Vijayawada

First of all, I appreciate your initial move of starting monthly investments for the last 3 years. It is a very disciplined approach, despite missing the SIPs of last 4 months. On a general note, we would recommend you to restart your SIPs, if you are sure about the fundamentals of the funds you had opted for. But, if you are not sure about your funds or have a doubt, we recommend you to consult a good financial planner and take her opinion. Please remember that you can continue with your amount in a fund even if you have no further SIPs going on. Hence the options are – no more SIPs in those funds but SIPs in new funds while the earlier amounts continue in the older funds; SIPs restarted in those funds while the earlier amounts also continue in them; redemption of the amounts from earlier funds and new SIPs in new funds while redeemed amount may or may not go into the new funds as per your discretion. So you see that the mutual funds have all sorts of flexibility as per your requirements and preferences.

There have been discrepancies in my repayment of housing loans in the last 8 years. My instalment is Rs 40,000 a month. The bank has levied penalty for the bounced ECS payment. Should I clear the penalty or question the same? I want to better my credit rating. Please advise.

— Damodaran S, Madurai

If you have found discrepancy in your repayment of loan records even if the installment amount was maintained in your savings bank account, then either there has been some error in registration of your ECS or there simply has been some wrong communication between the bank’s two depts of banking and loaning. So, check with your bank and get the system data corrected, so that it will not happen again in future. Thereafter, pay the penalty amount which has been levied by bank. Once done, take it up with the loaning agency and try to sort it out by following it up actively. Generally, defaults or delays in payment of loan more than 30 days past the due date are reported to Cibil. The reason we have recommended to pay the penalty is that if an EMI is not paid in time, it will affect your credit rating and future financial institutions may be reluctant to give you loan in future based on that rating.