New Delhi, May 28 -- The Public Provident Fund (PPF) is an assured, long-term, government-backed savings scheme. It offers safe, predictable, easy-to-redeem and tax-free returns. It also provides a loan facility, making it a useful source of low-cost emergency funds without breaking your growth investments, such as mutual funds and stocks.

If you understand this facility properly, it can also protect you from forced personal loans or credit card debt with very high interest rates. Keeping this fact in mind, let us discuss PPF, loan against it and associated concepts in detail.

A PPF loan is a facility that permits account holders to avail a limited amount against their PPF balance instead of withdrawing or closing the account. This faci...