Wealth creation to secure financial future priority for young investors: Survey

About 79.3 per cent of investors surveyed began their investment journey less than a year ago during the pandemic and a majority of respondents consider wealth creation as their top most priority, a survey by Groww found.

Further, about 18.3 per cent of respondents started investing in the past three years, while only 2.4 per cent respondents have been investing for more than 3 years and consider themselves as experienced investors, the survey released on Friday noted.

The findings are based on the survey conducted by leading investment platform Groww among over 20,000 respondents in India between the age of 18 and 30 years in the first week of August.

It was conducted with an aim to gain a deeper understanding of how investments are viewed by young Indian millennials and zillennials.

The survey highlighted that young Indians are joining the investing bandwagon at an early age to secure their future financial well-being.

It found that 40.2 per cent of Indian youth surveyed willing to invest more now as compared to the pre-pandemic times. Further, 26.6 per cent respondents feel that the pandemic had no impact on their investments decisions.

Moreover, 25.8 per cent of the respondents reduced their investments due to the reduction in their income, and the rest of the respondents felt that risk appetite had decreased due to the pandemic.

The survey revealed that friends and colleagues were the most influential when it comes to investment decisions with 30.6 per cent considering their advice, followed by the news (27.4 per cent) and social media influencers (23.4 per cent).

However, family and investment agents/advisors were the least influential with only 13.9 per cent and 4.6 per cent, respectively.

Interestingly, 59.8 per cent of the respondents feel that wealth creation to secure their future expenses and retirement is the top most priority.

About 9.5 per cent of respondents are investing to pursue their higher education, while 30.7 per cent have invested to fulfill their evolving lifestyle needs such as travel and other personal goals.

"We, at Groww, have witnessed a positive shift in young Indian's minds towards investing.

"They are highly focussed on financial well-being for themselves and their families at a much younger age than their predecessors," Harsh Jain, chief operating officer and co-founder of Groww, said.

He added that the survey was conducted to understand how young India invests and what drives their investment journey. The most promising highlight is that India's young investors today are focussed on wealth creation.

"It is evident in the survey that today's youth has a high appetite for learning and are very educated about available investment options that will help them make the right decisions in their journey towards being financially independent," he added.

The survey also highlighted that the lack of financial knowledge is the main reason for low investments.

It also noted that low-risk appetite is one of the challenges for making the investment decision. But, the bright side is that they are open to understanding the investment nuances and making a well thought through investment in future.