Salaried PL playbook · 2,571 words

How to Calculate FOIR and Detect Fake Salary Deposits

Fixed Obligation to Income Ratio is only as good as the income and the obligations you feed it. This playbook shows the formula, lender caps, fake-salary patterns, and how FinAnalyser reads them from Indian PDFs.

Every personal loan that blows up in month four had a FOIR that looked fine on a form. The form used the offer-letter CTC and ignored the KreditBee NACH, the gold-loan interest, and the “salary” that was actually a cousin’s UPI. Bank-statement FOIR exists to stop that. This is the complete credit-appraisal playbook for salaried files in India.

The FOIR formula, worked

FOIR% = (Home EMI + Car EMI + Personal/other contractual EMIs + proposed EMI + policy-inclusions) ÷ Net in-hand monthly income × 100. Net in-hand is what hits the account after PF and tax, averaged across the statement months you actually have — usually 3–6. Do not use CTC. Do not annualise a bonus unless policy says so.

Lender caps (typical retail desks)

Max additional EMI = (salary × cap) − existing obligations. The free FOIR tool computes this live. A DSA who promises quantum before FOIR is selling a decline.

Fake salary deposits — pattern book

• Round lakhs on the 1st with no corporate CMS id
• UPI from related names / same-device VPAs
• Credit then immediate debit to the sender (circular)
• Cash deposits labelled salary in the borrower’s head, not the bank’s
• Employer string that does not match offer letter / GST / MCA
• Salary only in months the loan is applied for
• Multiple “salaries” into different banks that never overlap (stacking theatre)

What to include in obligations

Always: bank/NBFC EMIs visible as NACH/ECS/e-Mandate/Autopay, home, car, LAP, education, gold-loan contractual outgo if monthly. Usually: credit-card EMI conversions. Policy-dependent: revolving card minimums, BNPL, SI for insurance. Never: groceries, rent paid in cash off-statement, or one-time UPI to a friend. Law 6: own-account transfers are not income and not FOIR income; they also are not “EMI” unless they are a loan SI.

Salary stability across six months

A single month of CMS is a story. Six months with ±10% variance is a job. Variable pay should be haircut per policy (often exclude or average conservatively). New joiners need offer letter + first credits; do not annualise the joining bonus. Detect employer change: two CMS names in six months is not fake, but FOIR must use the current employer’s run-rate.

EMI stacking and multi-bank FOIR

Borrowers apply to Navi on Monday and Bajaj on Thursday. Each lender sees one bank. Multi-bank PDF packs are the only defence. FinAnalyser multi-bank Excel adds Account columns so obligations stack. If you only parsed HDFC and the ICICI holds the home loan, FOIR is fiction.

Automation path

1. Collect 6 months original PDFs (all banks).
2. Parse with continuity; merge wraps.
3. Detect CMS salary; score confidence.
4. Detect EMI/NACH/Autopay; exclude charges-only lines from obligation face value.
5. Compute FOIR%; flag ≥50% and ≥60%.
6. Attach Excel; do not retype.

Interactive calculator for training: /tools/foir-calculator-personal-loan. Live files: upload. From ₹10/statement.

Offer letters versus the ledger

The offer letter is a claim. The ledger is an observation. Haircut variable pay, ignore joining bonus unless it repeats, and never FOIR on CTC. If the letter says ₹1.2 LPA in-hand ₹85,000 and the account shows ₹62,000 CMS, the account wins. DSAs who “go with the letter” to hit a quantum are manufacturing defaults. Digital lenders in Bengaluru already score this; bank PL desks are catching up. Be early.

Employer identity: CMS strings should resemble the letterhead, not “ACME TRADING UPI.” Director salary into a current account is allowed; mixing GST receipts into FOIR income is not. If the same PAN has a current and a savings, parse both. Hidden current accounts are where EMIs hide.

Gig, intern, and contractor “salary”

Swiggy/Zomato/Uber payouts are not CMS salary. Treat as business or gig income under SME/BL policy, or decline PL. Intern stipends that last two months are not a 60-month PL. Contractors with GST may look salaried on one NEFT from a client; look for GST outflows and multiple payers. FOIR without product discipline is how program loss curves explode.

Appeals when the portal FOIR disagrees

Keep the 28-sheet pack. If the lender portal missed a NACH, show the EMI sheet. If it included a contra as obligation, show Law-6. If it treated a bounce charge as EMI face value, show charge vs event. Appeals are evidence, not arguments.

Which months enter the average

Use the months you have, not the months the borrower wishes you had. If the PDF is 3.5 months, average 3 complete months plus a stub only if policy allows. Drop the application month if it contains a one-time reimbursement that looks like salary. Digital lenders often want the latest 3; bank PL may want 6. State the window in the credit note. Silent windows are how two analysts FOIR the same human at 41% and 58%.

For new joiners, do not annualise month one. Wait for the second CMS or take a conservative haircut. For notice-period overlap, two employers in one month is not fake; use the ongoing employer’s run-rate going forward and disclose the overlap.

Cash salary cultures and what you can still do

Some genuine SMEs pay cash. PL programs that require CMS will decline them — that is product, not parser. Do not launder cash as salary because the DSA needs the file. Point them to BL/ABB products. If cash is banked same-day in round sums with no employer, it is still not CMS. Honesty here is cheaper than a 90-day NPA.

The FOIR working paper layout

One block: income months and CMS strings. One block: each EMI with lender name from narration. One line: FOIR% vs cap. One line: max additional EMI. Attach the calculator screenshot only for training files; for live files attach the engine sheet. If you still type EMIs from memory, you will miss the Autopay that started last Tuesday.

Income quality: CMS, NEFT payroll, and the things that are not salary

Verified monthly income for salaried personal loans is the money that hits the account from an employer-like rail on a repeating cycle. In India that is usually CMS, NEFT from a corporate beneficiary, or a payroll company string that matches the offer letter and, where you have it, Form 16. It is not cash. It is not UPI from a cousin’s @okaxis handle with the remark SALARY. It is not a director IMPS the same week as the application. It is not a one-time arrears credit you annualised because the borrower asked nicely. Net in-hand is what you observe after PF and tax, averaged across the complete months you actually have. CTC is a marketing number. Bonus is policy. New-joiner month one is not a run-rate. Notice-period overlap with two employers in one month is not fake — disclose it and use the ongoing employer going forward.

Variable pay needs a haircut you can defend. If three months show ₹1.2 lakh, ₹1.2 lakh and ₹2.8 lakh, the ₹2.8 lakh is not the FOIR denominator unless policy says include variable and you have a year of it. Many retail desks average conservatively or exclude spikes. Digital lenders (Navi, KreditBee, MoneyView-style programs) often want the latest three complete months and will not let you “explain” a UPI salary. Bank PL may want six. State the window in the credit note. Silent windows are how two analysts FOIR the same human at 41% and 58% and both think they are right.

Second worked example — stacked digital EMIs

Max additional EMI = (verified income × program cap) − existing contractual outgo. At a 50% cap this file has no room. A DSA who already promised ₹9,500 EMI is selling a decline. Run the free FOIR gauge before the customer sits down. Production files should not be typed into the gauge — they should come from the ledger: CMS detection, EMI/NACH/Autopay detection, then FOIR%. The calculator is for training and for explaining caps to a borrower. The BSA pack is the working paper.

Fake salary: a pattern book that survives WhatsApp coaching

Spoofing adapted when DSAs started saying “we can see UPI.” The new theatre is NEFT from a related concern with an employer-shaped name, round lakhs on the 1st, and a same-week reversal labelled “loan repayment.” Another pattern is cash deposited at the ATM on payday in amounts that match the offer letter, then UPI’d out to household accounts so the average balance still looks salaried. Another is salary only in the application month, with three prior months of trading UPI. Another is two banks: HDFC shows CMS theatre, Canara holds the real job-work book, and you were only given HDFC. Multi-bank packs are the defence. Salary confidence scores and circular-flow flags are the alarm. Do not override them because the RM is in a hurry. Hurry is how Navi files become NPAs.

• Round lakhs on the 1st with no CMS/payroll company id.
• UPI from related names, same-device VPAs, or handles that match the applicant’s GST contacts.
• Credit then debit to the same party within 48 hours (circular).
• Cash labelled salary in the borrower’s head, not in the bank’s narration.
• Employer string that does not match offer letter, MCA, or GST.
• Salary only in the months the loan is applied for.
• Multiple “salaries” into different banks that never overlap (stacking theatre).
• ESOP sale or reimbursement labelled salary — one-time, not run-rate.
• Director sitting fee or professional UPI into a “salaried” PL file without disclosure.

Obligations: what the statement shows versus what the form admits

Always in: home, car, LAP, education, personal, gold-loan contractual monthly outgo if it hits as NACH/ECS/e-Mandate/Autopay or a standing bank EMI. Usually in: credit-card EMI conversions. Policy-dependent: revolving card minimums, BNPL, insurance SI, overdraft interest that is not a contractual EMI. Never in: groceries, cash rent off-statement, one-time UPI to a friend. Law 6: own-account transfers are not income and are not EMI unless they are a loan standing instruction. Gold-loan interest-only outgo may or may not sit in FOIR — name the policy. Payday apps (CASHe, Ring, Kissht and cousins) are contractual when the debit is monthly and visible. Portal FOIR that only ingested the proposed lender’s own EMI is how stacking wins.

Joint home loans need a rule. If the statement shows the full EMI leaving this account, count the full EMI unless the co-borrower’s account is in the pack and you can prove a split. Do not assume a 50% split because the application form said so. Overdraft utilisation is not FOIR unless policy converts a limit into an equivalent EMI. Do not ignore a maxed OD that is clearly lifestyle leverage. Do not treat OD interest spikes as a second home loan. Write the treatment once in the credit note.

Gig, contractor, and GCC employees in Bengaluru-style books

Contractors paid by a body shop may look like CMS from the agency, not from the brand on the offer letter. That is not fake; match the agency. Gig UPI from multiple platforms is not salaried PL income unless the program says so — point them to cashflow products. GCC employees with Canara or HDFC and three digital EMIs are the core Bengaluru PL book: authenticity first, then FOIR seconds, not forty minutes of clerk Excel. See the Bengaluru fintech cornerstone for program behaviour. This playbook is the formula those desks still need when the portal under-counts Kissht.