Recurring deposit is scheme offered by banks where a person deposits monthly installment and banks gives higher interest rates than saving account. Recurring deposit is kind of fixed deposit and interest rates of recurring deposit is just little less than fixed deposit.

Recurring deposit is suitable for those people who have constant source of income, for example salaried people. It is best solution for medium term saving (6 months to 3 years) with higher interest rates.

Recurring Deposit Interest :  The interest rates given by banks is generally above 8.0% and it is compounded quarterly (means when your money gains interest in a year).

Lets take an example and then we will calculate recurring deposit step by step with explanation.

Example: Suppose you want to purchase a motorcycle next year and you want to save some money for it but you also want higher interest rates, so you chose to start RD. You start an RD of Rs.5000 for 1 year. So you are going to deposit Rs.5000 in the bank for next one year. And your bank gives you interest 8.25% for 1 year compounding quarterly.

This means, for you first installment of Rs.5000, you’ll get 8.25% interest for 12 months from the bank compounding quarterly. For the second installment, you’ll get 8.25% interest for 11 months compounding quarterly, and for third installment of Rs.5000, you’ll get 8.25% interest for 10 months compounding quarterly and so on.

Recurring Deposit Formula

A = P*(1+R/N)^Nt

A = Maturity amount.

P = Principal amount (In our case, it is Rs.5000)

R = Interest rate in decimal, convert interest rate into decimal by dividing it by 100 (In our case, 8.25/100 = 0.0825)

T = Time duration in months (In our case, it will be 12 months)

t = Time duration in years

N= compounding frequency (since it is quarterly, it will be 4)

Calculating recurring deposit maturity amount:

Now, we will calculate amount (A) from above formula for each installment we pay, starting from first month to 12th month and then add all of them. So the final maturity amount will be

A = A1+A2+A3+…..+A12

A1, A2, A3,,,A12 are the maturity amount for respective installment.

Month	P	R	T(months)	t(years)	N	A= P*(1+R/N)^Nt
1	5000	0.0825	12	12/12	4	A1 = 5425.44
2	5000	0.0825	11	11/12	4	A2 = 5388.64
3	5000	0.0825	10	10/12	4	A3 = 5352.10
4	5000	0.0825	9	9/12	4	A4 = 5315.80
5	5000	0.0825	8	8/12	4	A5 = 5279.75
6	5000	0.0825	7	7/12	4	A6 = 5243.94
7	5000	0.0825	6	6/12	4	A7 = 5208.38
8	5000	0.0825	5	5/12	4	A8 = 5173.05
9	5000	0.0825	4	4/12	4	A9 = 5137.97
10	5000	0.0825	3	3/12	4	A10 = 5103.12
11	5000	0.0825	2	2/12	4	A11 = 5068.51
12	5000	0.0825	1	1/12	4	A12 = 5034.14
						A = 62730.84

Using the above formula, we have calculated amount for each installment and then added all of them to get our final maturity amount.

For the first 5000 that you deposited in the bank, you will get interest for 12 months (t = 12/12 = 1), and for the second installment that you paid, you’ll get interest for 11 months.

Its not that hard to calculate RD maturity amount, you just need to understand the formula for calculating recurring deposit maturity amount.