New Day. New (financial) year. New Horizons. New Hopes.

Last night as I lay on my bed to sleep, I could not help but think of the (financial) year gone by and what lies ahead in the new one.

Thoughts (of new tidings) kept popping into my mind. Here are some of them that I would like to share with you:

• Access your money through all ATMs: No more waiting in queues (hopefully) at ATMs. From today I can walk into any ATM and withdraw money without being charged by my bank. This should have happened long ago. But better late than never. I could never digest the fact that I have to pay to withdraw my own money.

• Save money, buy the Nano: From today, the Nano would be displayed in all showrooms and later this year, the roads will be full of them (at least I hope for Tata’s sake considering the fact that the last financial must have been his worst ever in terms of luck).

• New government, new rays of hope: By the end of the current quarter, we should have a new government in place. And I hope it is a more ‘functioning’ government. Not a paralyzed one.

• Power to the youth: For millions of young people this election would be their first. I hope they all go out and exercise their right.

• New investments: Time to start fresh SIPs in ELSS (tax-saving) funds.

• Stock markets should start looking up: I think we have seen the worst in terms of the fall in the markets in 2008 - from 21000-odd levels in January to 7700-odd levels in October. This financial year is definitely going to be better. My personal feeling is that things should start looking better from Q3 / Q4 of FY10.

• My new initiatives: I have started some new initiatives to grow my business and I hope they will fructify this year. I hope to take a gigantic leap forward this financial year. Enough of blaming the markets. I will develop new and out-of-the-box ideas to tap fresh clientele.

• New Pension Scheme soon: The New Pension Scheme was supposed to have started from today. But now we will get to know more only in June after the elections are over. This will mark a big leap forward for the Indian financial markets. For investors, this is one scheme to look forward to.

It’s quite rightly termed as the new financial year, since all the things that begin today seem to be related to money and finance. Here’s wishing you a very prosperous new financial year!