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DBS Bank India in collaboration with CRISIL recently released the DBS Women and Finance study. The study has surveyed 800 high-income urban women, both salaried and self-employed across 10 Indian cities to capture their financial preferences. The surveyed women have incomes ranging from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 55 lakh per annum.
Moneycontrol spoke to Prashant Joshi, MD and Head of Consumer Banking Group at DBS Bank India on where urban Indian women invest and why, what are their top financial priorities and more.
Here are a few points that Prashant highlighted:
-Where women invest – the surveyed women have 51 percent of their investment portfolio parked in fixed deposits and savings accounts, 16 per cent in gold, 15 percent in mutual funds, 10 percent in real estate and 7 percent in stocks (numbers are rounded off).
-Why the preference for fixed deposits – Given the prevalent high interest rates, investing in fixed deposits can be considered a smart decision. It’s a conservative choice but currently, the risk-return paradigm is in favour of term deposits. It also looks like many women are at an early stage of their investing journey and are probably going with safer options. As they get more familiar with investing, a diversification away from fixed deposits can be expected.
-Older versus younger women – 65 percent of women aged over 45 years take financial decisions independently compared with 41 percent of those aged 25-35 years as per the study. This reflects the fact that the ability to take financial decisions is a function of experience and confidence in one’s ability to take financial decisions and less so on information availability, something that the younger generation may have greater access to.
-Women’s financial priorities – For salaried women, the top priorities are home ownership / upgrade of home, supporting families and prioritizing children’s education (the latter for married women). For self-employed women, home ownership and funding their own business are two equally important priorities. For older women, health and wellness becomes an important goal.
-Regionally, in the North, saving for retirement is the top priority, while in the South, children’s education is the top priority.
-Women’s credit card usage – Expectedly, 82 percent of the surveyed women use credit cards. Geographically, Hyderabad has 98 percent credit card adoption, likely due to proliferation of IT services in the city. In contrast, Kolkata has only 63 percent credit card adoption rate, the lowest among all cities.
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