Personal
Financial Management : MASS’2018 - Money Avenues Savers’ Survey 2018 Result
V GOPALAKRISHNAN
Founder & CEO
MONEY AVENUES
 |
| V GOPALAKRISHNAN, |
Understanding the minds of the
people has always been intriguing and challenging for all the businesses due to
variety of reasons. The challenge is multi fold when it comes to understanding
the minds of the youth on their financial habits. Clients’ needs and wants have
their own preferences and choices; for someone in the financial services to
succeed, cracking this code is very very crucial.
To unravel the financial habits
mystery of the youth, Money Avenues (http://www.moneyavenues.in)engaged a nation wide survey to understand
the financial habits of the youth in the age group of 30 - 40 years. Survey
named as MASS'2018 (Money Avenues Savings Survey 2018) was conducted over a
period of three months using a sample size of 1000 young professionals spread
across 9 Cities ( 4 Metros, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, Gurgaon and
Noida).
The survey was conducted through
multiple methods, but largely conducted through personal interviews and through
online response sheets for ensuring appropriate responses from the respondents.
The whole idea behind the survey is to find out the basic financial habits of
the young professionals who are high on careers and financial status. The
respondents were provided with ten standard questions based on which the
responses were collected and analysed.
The respondents were were chosen
based on the density and demography of each City, making the sample a realistic
and justifiable in terms of final analysis reflecting the overall mood of the
youths on the issue. The respondents were also carefully chosen from diverse
backgrounds and diverse industries such as IT & IT related, FMCG, Internet,
Telecom and others. The results were indeed a big eyeopener and thought
provoking for the entire financial services industry.
1. What are the key factors
impacting your personal financial management?
- a) Lack of awareness (22%)
- b) Too busy with work (21%)
- c) Lack of guidance (7%)
- d) Procrastination (19%)
- e) All the above (31%)
Maximum respondents cited all the
four reasons impacting their personal financial management. Its a fact that all
are busy with their works, leaving little or no time to sit back and think
about their personal financial management. Added to it, lack of awareness for
the need of personal financial management makes it even more complicated.
2. What are the key factors
impacting your current financial scenario?
- a) Lack of adequate savings (17%)
- b) EMIs & Outflows (36%)
- c) Lack of financial discipline (6%)
- d) Lack of financial planning (4%)
- e) All the above (37%)
Maximum respondents yet again cited
all the four reasons of making an impact in their current financial scenario.
3. What are the factors bothering
your financial future?
- a) Personal dreams (House, lifestyle improvement etc)
(12%)
- b) Children’s future (16%)
- c) After Work life (Retirement) (31%)
- d) All the above (41%)
Again, the maximum respondents
opined all the factors listed above make an impact on their financial future.
Interestingly, people are worried more about their post work life or
retirement.
4. Do you follow a financial plan
based on your goals and objectives?
- a) Yes 11%
- b) No 89%
It’s not surprising to see maximum
number of respondents do not work on their financial planning.
5. Do you invest your savings?
- a) Yes (12%)
- b) Somewhat Yes (51%)
- c) No (37%)
On the investment question, the
somewhat yes which has a higher percentage indicates that their investing is
based on specific requirement, for eg.,tax savings.
6. How often do you invest your
money?
- a) Very regularly (Once in few months) 7%
- b) Regularly (once a year) 38%
- c) Occasionally (Once in few years) 16%
- d) Not at all (39%)
The non-investors seem to be a major
chunk in this category. The regular investors are the ones who primarily invest
for their tax saving requirements.
7. Why do you invest?
- a) For better returns (11%)
- b) To save taxes (62%)
- c) For my financial goals (14%)
- d) All the above (13%)
Many young investors tend to equate
tax savings with investing. And that is what is reflecting in the survey
results, with the vast majority investing only to save taxes.
8. Where did you invest your money?
- a) House (22%)
- b) Gold (19%)
- c) Mutual Funds (11%)
- d) Insurance (34%)
- e) Others (14%)
Every youngster’s first dream is to
own a home and that seems to be a major factor. Insurance, which is not an
investment, is often treated as an investment in the Indian context. Many have
taken insurance for fulfilling tax saving requirements.
9. Who do you seek for guidance on
your investments?
- a) Family members (33%)
- b) Friends and colleagues (31%)
- c) Professional Advisor (13%)
- d) Digital and online sources (23%)
This question was aimed to identify
their influencers’ in the financial decision making. Their close circles form
the largest chunk of influence in their decisions as seen in the survey
results.
10. How do you rate your personal
financial management?
- a) Extremely Happy (3%)
- b) Happy(12%)
- c) Unhappy (32%)
- d) Extremely Unhappy (53%)
This has been the icing on the cake.
When people were asked about their personal financial management experience,
most of them were extremely unhappy about themselves. Very few were happy about
their personal financial management experience.
Though a brief survey, but the
contents clearly point to few obvious conclusions for the people working in the
financial services industry. Despite information explosion, investors or
potential investors still need the services of the professional advisors on
their personal financial management. Secondly, the personal financial
management which is largely sketchy and unorganized, investors need to streamline
their personal finances based on their goals and objectives.
Youngsters, by and
large are not happy about their personal financial management and that offers a
huge scope for the personal financial managers to step in and help them gain
happy experience.
V GOPALAKRISHNAN, Founder & CEO, MONEY AVENUES
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