India is ‘climbing the ladder of prosperity’ with highest number of people using investment for long-term savings

• Out of 11,000 people surveyed across Asia, Africa and Middle East, 68% Indian people use financial products for long-term savings.
  
• Research shows that most Indian people use financial products to save for their children’s education.
  
• Both, India and China, have the highest number of people witnessing a positive trend in social mobility.
  

India has always been a savings economy and recent study by Standard Chartered Bank goes a step further to show that India may even have the highest number of people with the capacity to save.

Nearly 68% of Indians fall into this ‘affluent class’ of people where they are using financial products to meet their goals which is above the global average of 57%. In fact, 79% of the of Indians within this class believe that managing finance efficiently has the most effect on social status.

The study was conducted across 11,000 emerging affluents in 11 markets across Asia, Africa and the Middle-East. It revealed that the primary reason for investing among most people was to save for their children’s education. Increasing personal wealth and home ownership were secondary goals.

The top three investment products popular among the wealthy class were mutual funds, fixed income investments and equity investments. The findings of this study suggests that 31% of people prefer investing in mutual funds, while 25% choose fixed investments followed by equity investment which was used by a mere 22%.

But when it comes to trading online, the world’s fastest growing economy also has 66% of its emerging affluents betting big on high level of risk with digital financial products.

Despite popularity of using wealth management system, 55% of Indians were not able to meet their financial goal. The primary reasons cited were lack of awareness, not only in terms of financial instruments, but in terms of financial planning for the future.

Globally, India has the second-highest number of people experiencing social mobility, or an upward movement in their social status. Despite this one-third of Indians haven’t witnessed any movement in their social standing. That being, 53% of people have moved up in society and 11% were even ‘supercharged with social mobility’.

The Emerging Affluent Study 2018 titled ‘Climbing the Prosperity ladder’ assesses the way emerging affluent consumers save and invest in China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Singapore, South Korea and the UAE. It primarily investigates the digital savviness, social mobility and financial proficient among these markets