Opinions on investing in smart wealth plan by bank?

Avoid. Insurance company and bank RM would make gains; but you could do much better not mixing insurance with investments. Insurance cover is inadequate, returns from ULIPs are lower than bank deposit

This is not that different from the query on LIC. Bank / Insurance company would take your money, invest in some market-linked securities, deduct insurance related charges; and give you back peanuts. Upside is limited, but bank would sell you on the idea that downside is also limited.

As a rule of thumb, any policy or plan sold by bank, especially one that has a smart in its name, can be avoided without further consideration.

ULIP (Unit Linked Insurance Policy), Endowment plan, Annuity Plan - these are all great plans for the banks & insurance companies. But they are terrible for you.

Before buying into any bank products that are sold with such hopes and optimism, ask the bank RM to put you in touch with an existing subscriber, so you can review returns-in-the hands of an investor who actually invested in that.

Note that just because a bank RM is selling you, doesn't mean its returns are guaranteed by the bank. Other than bank deposits, nothing else is guaranteed, even if a bank sells you that.

You can look at the brochure / policy doc, and you'd see nice fat projections. But that's all those are - projections. Per IRDA regulation, banks & insurers can create projections with 8% and 4% return as illustrations.

That's not a guaranteed amount.

Some banks do sell guaranteed annuity and similar products. Putting those in a single excel sheet, or Google Spreadsheet, and invoking XIRR() function would show you that returns would barely be anything close to long term FD returns. Here's an example from #insurance channel: https://discord.com/channels/546638391127572500/546639811792994329/768485559147823134

As said above, buy term cover if you need insurance. Invest in market-linked cost-efficient assets if you need returns. Most importantly, don't mix insurance with investment, where investment pays for the insurance.