February 2026 Recap with Qonfido

February has felt unusually charged.

A Budget landed on a Sunday. A trade deal with America got announced, celebrated, complicated, and is now being renegotiated in real time. The RBI held steady and told us, more quietly than anyone noticed, that inflation has nearly halved from where it was a year ago. And somewhere in the middle of all of this, Vasant, sat in a room at the AI-in-FinTech Conclave in Bengaluru, listening to founders, regulators, and investors talk about where money management in India is actually headed.

It was one of those months where you feel the velocity of things.

We are building Qonfido because we see the fragmentation, the anxiety. We see that managing money well still requires a spreadsheet, three apps, and a lot of luck.

February was a collective reminder, for us a team, of why that gap still exists and why closing it matters more than ever.

Here's what we saw, from the field.

WHAT FEBRUARY REALLY TOLD US ABOUT MONEY IN INDIA

We've been thinking a lot about the tension that February made sharper.

India's macroeconomic story has never been cleaner. Growth at 7.4%. Inflation at 2.1%. A government spending record amounts on building the country's physical and digital backbone. And yet household anxiety about money keeps rising. Wealth is growing but confidence isn't growing with it.

Why?

We think the answer is structural. Most Indians even educated, finance-literate Indians are managing money reactively rather than intentionally. They're responding to events rather than operating from a coherent system. The tools haven't helped. Apps give you data without context. Advisors give you products without transparency. And nobody connects your portfolio to your actual life.

This is the problem we're building to solve with Qonfido. Not just another dashboard. A system that helps you think clearly about money: goal by goal, decision by decision, year by year.

If you haven’t had the chance yet, here is how you can get started: https://www.qonfido.com/home#signup

THE MONTH IN THREE STORIES

Story 1: The Budget

On February 1, in a first for independent India, the Union Budget was presented on a Sunday. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman delivered her ninth consecutive Budget framing it around Yuva Shakti: growth, aspiration, inclusion.

For investors, two things to sit with:

First, STT on futures rises from 0.02% to 0.05%. Options STT also goes up. Buybacks are now taxed as capital gains at effective rates of up to 30% for non-corporate promoters. Derivatives traders felt the sting immediately.

Second, the new Income Tax Act 2025 kicks in from April 1, 2026. NRIs can now invest in listed Indian equities through the Portfolio Investment Scheme with a 10% holding limit. Both are quiet but meaningful structural changes.

The bigger takeaway: this Budget is not about transformation. It's about compounding. The government is betting that sustained, year-on-year capital investment in infrastructure, semiconductors, and skilling will create the supply-side conditions for a decade of private growth. That's a patient bet. The right kind.

Story 2: The Trade Deal

February 2: Trump posts on social media that the US and India have agreed to a trade deal. February 6: White House joint statement drops. February 7: The additional 25% tariff penalty on Indian goods (linked to Russia oil purchases) is eliminated. February 9: An updated factsheet is released. February 21: The US Supreme Court strikes down Trump's tariff authority under IEEPA. February 24: India pauses its trade negotiating team's Washington visit. Trump invokes a separate law, resets global tariffs to 15%.

So where does it stand? The core deal: US tariffs on Indian goods fall from ~50% to 10%. India commits to buying $500 billion of American products energy, aircraft, GPUs, and coking coal over five years. India also commits to reducing Russian oil imports.

Our honest read: don't confuse the chaos of the process with the importance of the direction. India is structurally reorienting away from Russian oil dependency, toward US supply chains, GPUs, and data infrastructure. That's a multi-decade shift. The current noise is implementation friction, not a reversal.

Story 3: The RBI Move

The Monetary Policy Committee met February 4–6 and kept the repo rate steady at 5.25%. No surprise after slashing 125 basis points across 2025, the RBI is watching its medicine work.

But the details mattered. GDP growth forecast revised up to 7.4% for FY26. CPI inflation projection: 2.1% down from 4.8% at the start of the year.

Here's the thing nobody is talking about enough: India's CPI basket is being reweighted, with food's share being reduced by roughly 900 basis points. When this revision comes through, measured inflation will mechanically look higher, even if nothing on the ground has changed. That's a number to watch and not misread.

FROM QONTENT DESK

We wrote a lot in February. Here are three pieces from our team that connect directly to what's happening in the market.

On agents replacing apps

Most of us don't actually want to manage money. We want an outcome: security, freedom, a retirement we don't have to dread. The mental load of traditional app-based tools is real. In a world where AI agents can be proactive, adaptive, and always-on, the question shifts from "which app should I use?" to "can technology finally carry this burden for me?" Vasant wrote about what that future looks like.

Read it here

On why you need more than one portfolio

The Budget month always creates a scramble. Most people reshuffle investments in response to tax changes, chase new themes, and react to headlines. But here's the underlying problem: most people have one portfolio doing the job of three. Emergency liquidity, wealth building, and retirement shouldn't live in the same bucket with the same risk level and the same strategy.

Read it here

HERE IS WHAT WE HAVE BEEN BUILDING

February for us, has brought with it, the little wins and challenges that came our way. We are constantly striving to get the industry best, in everything we strive for.

First things first, we created an AI-first Mutual Fund discovery engine. We understand that there are over 300+ curated funds which can make it difficult to figure out the right fit. Take it for a spin here.
We believe in creating Qool Tools. Don’t believe us? Check this Financial Independence Calculator, for yourself. Because the journey to start building wealth starts from, building the right knowledge of your finances.
We kicked off interesting conversations in our invite-only community, Qonfido Labs. At its heart, the community helps us build with you and for you, the right way. Interested to see how it works? Sign up here.

Until next month.

Qonfido is an AI-first personal finance co-pilot and wealth management engine, built to help Indians invest with clarity, confidence, and control. This newsletter is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.

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